Summarised by Centrist
A new global satellite study confirms what many suspected—New Zealand isn’t even on the map when it comes to the world’s biggest methane emitters.
The study, which analysed data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite, found that the worst methane emissions come from massive wetlands and fossil fuel extraction sites overseas.
The Sudd wetland in South Sudan tops the list at 4.5 million tons per year, while Argentina’s Iberá wetland follows with 3.3 million tons.
On the human side, the biggest methane offender is Turkmenistan’s oil and gas fields, spewing 3.5 million tons annually—orders of magnitude higher than New Zealand’s entire agricultural sector.
Yet despite these glaring sources, climate activists continue fixating on New Zealand’s farmers, pushing costly emissions schemes that could cripple the country’s agricultural sector while making zero impact on global methane levels.
The Global Methane Pledge, signed at COP26, aims for a 30% reduction by 2030, but with Turkmenistan, China, and Russia among the worst offenders, there’s little indication they’ll follow through.
New Zealand, which produces a fraction of the emissions seen in these global hotspots, continues to face pressure to cut back on livestock, even as the world’s largest polluters ramp up their output.
