Environment › Climate negotiations and finance
Mitigation: industry, methane and carbon removal
Cutting emissions where it is hardest and taking carbon back out of the air: steel, cement and other heavy industry, methane and cooling gases, shipping and aviation, and carbon capture, removal and geoengineering. It serves GS3 answers on climate change and industry.
Showing 1 of 3 subjects, those that changed from 16 to 31 July 2026.Show all
Methane from paddy
Copy link to Methane from paddyPrelims and Mains
Flooded paddy fields release methane because microbes in waterlogged soil break down organic matter without oxygen, which makes rice one of the largest agricultural sources of the gas and India's eastern paddy belt a global hotspot.
What changed
23 Jul 2026New subject
- A study in Nature Food finds that emissions from paddy fields worldwide have risen about 90 per cent since the 1960s, roughly half of it from loss of soil organic carbon.
- India's irrigated paddy alone releases about 3.9 million tonnes of methane a year, and paddy fields in eastern India are among the global hotspots.
- Better irrigation, fertiliser use, residue management and reduced tillage could cut rice emissions by about 10 per cent by mid century.
Mains: India has no emissions reduction target for agriculture.