Who are the “super emitters” of methane? Let’s explore them together and find out if cattle farms are really among them.

When discussing methane emissions, we immediately think of cows and cattle farming. But they can be part of the solution to the climate crisis. Strange as it may sound, given the dominant narrative, the ‘super emitters’, so-called because of their extremely high levels of this powerful climate-changing greenhouse gas they release, are others.

Methane is produced not only by livestock digestion but also by rice paddies, wetlands, landfills, even oceans, and fossil fuel extraction, whose emissions are much higher than expected. According to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the impact of fossil fuel extraction, such as gas, coal and oil, and fugitive emissions, accounts for 34% of anthropogenic methane, while methane from livestock accounts for 27% and landfills for 23%. The remaining 16% of anthropogenic methane comes from other agricultural activities.

Emissions detected from space

Thanks to satellite systems, it is now possible to identify the main sources of methane. Contrary to popular belief, livestock farming is not the main source of methane emissions. The satellite system called the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (Tropomi), can monitor atmospheric methane concentrations worldwide. This allows precise quantification and detection of the exact locations of the highest emissions with the ability to ‘zoom in’ and identify the structures responsible.

Data collected from space with such a sophisticated approach finally revealed the truth: the Earth’s large landfills, especially those in some cities, emit more methane than expected, as do gas and oil extraction. Thanks to these multi-satellite observations, it is possible to identify and monitor high-emitting landfills worldwide, with some of the largest emissions detected in Buenos Aires, Delhi, Lahore and Mumbai. According to the Tropomi data, emissions from cities are 1.4 to 2.6 times higher than previously estimated, and landfills contribute up to 50% of these emissions.

Another highly effective orbiting instrument that can scan large areas of the planet to detect large global methane emissions is the spectrometer developed by NASA as part of the Emit study – NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Investigation, which has identified more than 50 “super emitters” in Central Asia, the Middle East and the southwestern United States. Once again, oil and gas facilities and large landfills were confirmed as major sources of methane, with some of the largest methane plumes ever detected.

Livestock farming as part of the solution

As Professor Frank Mitloehner, an air quality specialist and professor in the Department of Animal Science at UC Davis, explains in this video: “There is a lot of potential for livestock to reduce global warming drastically. We have mismeasured the contribution of methane. If we want to know the impact of methane reduction on warming, the equivalence with the unit of CO2 is completely wrong. If we keep the number of animals on the farm constant, the amount of methane produced by the cows and the amount of methane destroyed will balance each other out. This means we are not adding any new carbon to the atmosphere and, therefore, have no additional warming.

Methane from livestock is considered a flow gas because it is destroyed when it is emitted. In contrast, carbon dioxide from fossil fuels is a stock gas that accumulates in the atmosphere. Agriculture and livestock are the only human activities where carbon emissions and sequestration occur simultaneously. Therefore, instead of warming the planet, we could achieve short-term global cooling by actively removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing atmospheric CO2 in the soil.

Livestock farming efforts to reduce CH4 emissions

The livestock sector has made significant progress in reducing methane production from cattle. In California, for example, methane has been reduced by 25% through improved manure management or by adding probiotics, red seaweed-based supplements or even tannins to the diet, which affect the digestive process. Cows fed this supplement even showed a 92% reduction in methane produced in the rumen, improving their welfare and production efficiency.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), methane is responsible for a quarter of global warming. Other reports show a 45% reduction in this decade would prevent 0.3 degrees Celsius warming by 2040. In Italy, new studies with updated metrics that consider the differences between methane and CO2 confirm that livestock farming has not affected the climate in the last decade but has contributed to cooling the atmosphere, with negative emissions of -49 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

Understanding who is responsible for super methane emissions, calculating their emissions accurately and stopping focusing on the wrong culprits, who can be of great help, is necessary to effectively channel energies in the right direction, based on science and not ideology, and effectively combat climate change.