Dr. Joeri Rogelj:

This builds on some of the responses that were given earlier. If we had started in 1990, there would have been a lot of room to play with and possibility to make trade-offs between methane reductions, CO2 reductions and so on. However, today we are above 1.1°C of warming, and probably already closer to 1.2°C. It is moving towards 1.5°C., which is level that governments have decided is a safe level. We want to halt warming at that level, or at least well below 2°C. This means that all greenhouse gases need to be reduced, but they need to be reduced in different ways. CO2 to net zero is the minimum that is required. Methane levels should be reduced as steeply as possible. If we do not reduce methane, then the 0.5°C of warming that it is currently causing will be even greater by mid-century, where we are, in the best of worlds, reaching our maximum level of warming. This means that despite there being opportunities to limit the warming that the world as a whole experiences and that is causing the extremes and the damage we are seeing, we decide to keep it higher than we can possibly reduce it. That is the real discussion that needs to be held.

As I said in response to the previous question, some of those methane emissions from rice paddy fields provide a really important service to society and are not eliminated fully. This is taken into account when determining what is possible to achieve in methane reduction.