- Methane (CH4) is a powerful greenhouse gas. In the first 20 years after release, methane is 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in trapping heat.
- The three main sources of methane emissions are waste and landfill sites, fossil fuels and natural gas leaks, and agriculture.
- While it is considered second to carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, curbing methane emissions is the fastest way to to slow global warming.
Methane or CH4, is a powerful greenhouse gas. It forms only 0.00017% of the atmosphere, but it is crucial in keeping the earth warm and habitable. Excess methane, however, is one of the most dangerous causes of global warming. In the first 20 years after release, methane is 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in trapping heat. In fact, it has been responsible for 40% of global warming, since the Industrial Revolution.
What are the main sources of methane emissions?
More than half of the global methane emissions stem from human activities in three sectors: agriculture (40%), fossil fuels (35% of human-caused emissions) and waste and landfills (20%).
In the third place are the landfills. Piles of garbage produce methane when they rot. Then, heatwaves, cigarette butts and other fire sources lead to the infamous landfill fires.
Methane-monitoring satellites that zoom in on sources of the climate-warming gas show that landfills contributed to more than 25 percent of methane emissions in Mumbai and six percent in Delhi. In Pune, isotopic studies, which rely on methane’s atomic makeup, point to significant landfill emissions of methane and a potential natural gas leak.
In the second place are leakages from oil and gas companies and other industrial operations. Burning natural gas produces much less carbon dioxide, than burning oil or coal. Along the way to the burner however, some natural gas escapes gas, which is mainly methane.
And the biggest methane emitter is the agriculture sector. Rice cultivation, enteric fermentation in cattle and crop residue burning are some of the sources of methane emission in agriculture.
When we talk about agricultural methane emissions, it’s primarily from rice cultivation. As you know, in rice cultivation, there is a lot of standing water that’s left after you inundate the crop. That’s the traditional way of growing rice. What happens when you do that is there is something called anaerobic respiration. You let water stay for a long time and the oxygen levels get depleted. And then there is methane and nitrous oxide emissions that emanate as a result of that.
How does methane impact human health?
Increased methane emissions are responsible for half of the observed rise in tropospheric ozone or ground-level ozone, a harmful air pollutant. It creates smog, thereby worsening bronchitis, triggering asthma and permanently damaging lung tissue. Exposure to ground-level ozone has resulted in an estimated one million premature deaths each year.
India is one of the top five emitters of methane. It also has dangerously high levels of tropospheric ozone.
What are the solutions to curb methane emissions?
In November 2021, nearly 100 countries signed the Global Methane Pledge at the climate conference COP26. They made a promise to curb methane emissions by 2030. India, however, did not sign the pledge.
When you talk about agriculture in India, it’s a climate-sensitive sector. Secondly, much of the population that is dependent on agriculture are small and marginal farmers, and almost 51% of Indian agriculture is rain-fed agriculture. We could probably call it survival emissions because people are producing food for subsistence.
She argues that it would not really be fair to burden a farmer who is fighting for subsistence, to commit to methane mitigation targets.
However, India’s scientists and policymakers are trying different ways to reduce methane emissions. From new varieties of rice that require less water, to better quality cattle feed that can reduce methane emissions from cows, and other technological developments for managing landfills and methane leaks in industries, to even coming up with an accurate measurement for methane emissions, there are regular experiments and improvements. But the process has been slow and expensive.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.