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Flaring, or burning off gas from oil production, is a key emitter of methane -- the second-most common greenhouse gas and the most powerful one.
Asia Insight

Soaring methane emissions raise stakes for Asia at COP27

Poor nations face astronomical cost as cycle of warming, thawing spins out of control

DOMINIC FAULDER, Nikkei Asia associate editor | Thailand

BANGKOK -- One of the great disappointments overshadowing the COP27 climate change conference is how little has been achieved since COP26.

Bold promises made last year in Glasgow for a renewed agenda on tackling global warming have been drowned out by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of methane, or CH4. The most powerful greenhouse gas conservatively accounts for 17% to 20% of greenhouse emissions and is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat over its first 20 years in the atmosphere.

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