Australia's total coal mine methane emissions double official estimates, Ember report finds (Excerpt): ABC News

 hours ago

This map shows the coal mines emitting the most methane in the country.(Supplied: Ember)

Australia's methane emissions from coal mines are twice as high as national estimates, with some mines leaking up to 10 times more methane than officially reported, research by an international climate think tank has found.

Key points:

• A new report has revealed that Australian coal mine methane emissions are double official estimates
• In 2019 coal methane emissions had a greater global warming impact than all of Australia's cars
• New "readily available" technologies could reduce methane emissions by 45 per cent

European-based researcher Ember was commissioned by the environmental group, Lock the Gate Alliance, to analyse available data on methane emissions from the Australian Greenhouse Emissions Information System (AGEIS), the Clean Energy Regulator (CER), the Australian Chief Economist, Department of Natural Resources and Mines, the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Global Energy Monitor.

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and its global warming potential is more than 25 times that of carbon dioxide.

The report found that in 2019, Australian coal mine methane emissions made up 68 per cent of overall energy industry emissions, making it a bigger contributor than oil and gas.

"What we found was that the methane leaking from Australian coal mines causes almost double the climate impact every year of all of Australia's cars," report author Dr Sabina Assan said.

"That's a really massive climate impact before we even start to think about the carbon dioxide emissions released from burning coal."

By ABC national regional reporter Nathan Morris

Go to complete ABC News report