Our climate goals may be slipping further out of reach. What if the world’s biggest polluters were emitting far more greenhouse gases than they admitted—without even realizing it? According to a new study, companies across the globe have been underestimating their methane emissions by billions of tons due to inconsistent accounting standards.
Researchers from University College London and Imperial College London conducted a study that found methane emissions are being underreported by at least the equivalent of between 170 million and 3.3 billion tons of carbon over a decade, depending on the metric used in calculating the shortfall.
Lead Author Dr. Simone Cenci (UCL Bartlett School of Environment, Energy & Resources) emphasizes the urgency of accurate methane reporting, stating, “The cumulative emission gap we have documented in this work shows how important it is to standardize the reporting of methane emissions.” He warns that without a unified system, companies will continue to underestimate their true climate impact.
Despite methane being overlooked in climate conversations, it is far more potent at trapping heat than carbon. Findings show that methane’s impact is 80 times stronger than carbon over 20 years (GWP-20) and 28 times stronger over 100 years (GWP-100).
Most companies report their emissions using the Global Warming Potential of 100 years (GWP-100). However, scientists argue that this makes methane appear less harmful in the short term and that GWP-20 would better reflect methane’s near-term warming effects.
Methane’s potency as a greenhouse gas is undeniable, yet inconsistencies in reporting make it difficult to assess its full impact. Dr. Cenci explains, “Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and the first step towards properly addressing its effect on climate is to make sure that it’s accounted for properly.”
The lack of a universal reporting standard leaves companies navigating a patchwork of regulations. “Adopting a global standard is in principle easy, as it only requires adjusting a few conversion factors,” says Dr. Cenci. “But fragmented policies across different countries make consistency nearly impossible.”
However, correcting methane underreporting will be an economically costly venture. Aligning global emissions reporting to GWP-100 would cost companies $1.6 billion over ten years, while the stricter GWP-20 standard could push that to $40 billion, with the biggest burden falling on industries like energy, utilities, and materials, which are the largest methane emitters.
The lack of global regulation means policymakers must act. Standardizing methane reporting would improve transparency and ensure companies take responsibility for their full climate impact. “Global coordination is essential,” Dr. Cenci stresses, “but until regulations align, companies will continue to report emissions in ways that downplay methane’s true cost to the planet.”
With methane emissions vastly underreported, technology could be the key to better tracking and accountability. Advances in satellite monitoring, AI-driven data analysis, and real-time sensors are making it easier to detect and quantify methane leaks more accurately.
However, technology alone won’t fix the problem—companies must proactively adopt standardized reporting, and governments need to enforce stricter regulations.
Governments, corporations, and global organizations must adopt harmonized accounting standards to combat climate change effectively.
