Soaring methane emissions raise stakes for Asia at COP27

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.