Methane Alert and Response System

Why in news?

• Recently the United Nations (UN) has decided to set up a satellite-based monitoring system “MARS: Methane Alert and Response System” for tracking methane emissions and alerting governments and corporations to respond.
• The MARS initiative is intended to strengthen the efforts to cut methane emissions

About Methane Alert and Response System:

• The MARS was launched at the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) to the UNFCCC in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
• The data-to-action platform was set up as part of the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) strategy to get policy-relevant data into the right hands for emissions mitigation.
• The system will be the first publicly available global system to connect methane detection to notification processes transparently.

Objectives:

• MARS will integrate data from a large number of existing and future satellites that have the ability to detect methane emission events anywhere in the world, and send out notifications to the relevant stakeholders to act on it.
• MARS will track the large point emission sources, mainly in the fossil fuel industry, but with time, would be able to detect emissions from coal, waste, livestock and rice fields as well.

About Methane:

• Methane is a colourless and odourless gas that occurs abundantly in nature and as a product of certain human activities.
• Methane is the simplest member of the paraffin series of hydrocarbons and is among the most potent of the greenhouse gases.
• Methane is the second-most common of the six major greenhouse gases, but is far more dangerous than carbon dioxide in its potential to cause global warming.
• Accounting for about 17% of the current global greenhouse gas emissions, methane is blamed for having caused at least 25%- 30% of temperature rise since the pre-industrial times.
• It accounts for a small portion of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions compared to carbon dioxide. But it is thought to be 80 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping atmospheric heat in the 20 years following its release.

PRACTICE QUESTION:

With reference to ‘MARS-Methane Alert and Response System’, consider the following statements:

1. It was launched at the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) to the UNFCCC

2. It will integrate data from a large number of existing and future satellites

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer