Limiting the release of methane in the atmosphere would mitigate climate effects and save billions of dollars for the countries, according to the study published in Science.

Methane has a global warming potential 30x higher than that of CO2 over a 100 year period. The emissions of this gas come from the worldwide extraction of coal, oil and natural gas. The international research has been led by Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de L'Environement in cooperation with the firm Kayrros. They have achieved completing a global tally of the largest emissions of methane into the atmosphere by the industry.

To obtain the data, researchers analysed thousands of daily images from the ESA's Sentinel-5P satellite over a two year period. They have mapped 1.800 methane plumes around the world. 1.200 of these were attributed to the fossil-fuel extraction. The impact of these emissions are comparable to that of 20 million vehicles on the road every year.

The emissons account for 10% of the total estimate for the industry and they are just the tip of the iceberg, because the ESA satellite can detect just the biggest plumes of over 25 tonnes of methane per hour.