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Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson announced last week that Canada will join a global initiative led by the United States and European Union to reduce methane emissions 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. Wilkinson also announced Canada will develop a plan to reduce domestic oil and gas sector methane emissions “at least” 75% below 2012 levels by 2030. 

The Global Methane Pledge was announced in a joint US-EU press statement last month. Since then, nations that have joined the Pledge increased to 32, including Canada, the UK, Japan, Nigeria, and Mexico. China, India, and Russia are notably absent from the current list. 

Methane is a greenhouse gas roughly 86 times more potent in terms of heat-trapping than carbon. That potency, though, is relatively short-lived; after 20 years, methane’s warming effect decreases significantly. Well known sources of methane emissions include natural gas production, waste, and animal agriculture.

Because of methane’s potency and short ‘shelf life’, strong near-term reductions could considerably boost humanity’s chances of keeping global temperatures at manageable levels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that raising the Pledge’s target to 50% reductions by 2030 could prevent 0.3 degrees of warming by 2030, and 0.5 degrees by 2100. In the context of the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, those are clearly substantial amounts. 

The Pledge, like the Paris Agreement, is a non-binding global climate commitment without inherent legal force. That is not, however, to say such global accords are without any legal effect. These commitments are often raised as in climate action cases and can impact how judges interpret environmental rights into legal charters like the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the European Convention on Human Rights.