# How much methane is India actually releasing, and who is responsible for it? > A satellite-informed count puts India's methane at 35.96 million tonnes in 2024, third globally, with farming's share shrinking and fossil-fuel leaks growing fastest. **India's methane is rising, and coal mines are gaining on cattle** Methane traps over 80 times more heat than CO2 over 20 years. India's emissions reached 35.96 million tonnes in 2024, up from 31 million tonnes a decade ago. While cattle and rice paddies still dominate, their share fell from 75% to 70%. Coal mining and oil-and-gas operations now cause 11.9% of the total, up from 8.3%. Two independent estimates now agree within half a percent, and the biggest named sources are Coal India's opencast mines, not landfills. ## Is India's methane going up or down? India's methane emissions are on a rising path. The latest estimate from Climate TRACE, a satellite-informed database, puts the country's methane at 35.96 million tonnes in 2024, up from 31 million tonnes in 2015. Methane is a greenhouse gas that packs a punch: over 20 years, it traps about 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide. But it breaks down in the atmosphere within a decade, so cutting it buys time faster than [cutting CO2](/articles/how-much-co2-does-india-emit/). Because methane warms the planet fast but fades quickly, reducing it now can slow warming sooner than an equivalent cut in CO2. The upward slope steepened slightly after 2020. This is just methane, not all [greenhouse gases](/articles/how-is-climate-change-changing-india/). ## Where does India rank among the world's biggest methane emitters? India sits at third place among the selected large emitters in Climate TRACE's 2023 data. China towers over everyone at 83.02 million tonnes, followed by the United States at 38.31 million tonnes. India's 35.27 million tonnes are uncomfortably close to the US level. Russia (21.06 million tonnes), Brazil (19.42 million), and Indonesia (14.93 million) are further behind. China's lead is enormous because it has far more coal mining and rice cultivation. The US emits more from oil and gas, while India's profile is still mostly agricultural. The ranking is not an exhaustive global list, but it shows that a handful of countries dominate methane emissions. ## Who is responsible for most of India's methane? Agriculture remains by far the largest source. In 2024, livestock and rice paddies together released 25.14 million tonnes of methane, accounting for 69.9% of India's total methane. Cows and buffaloes belch methane as they digest grass, a process called enteric fermentation. Flooded rice fields also produce methane when organic matter decomposes underwater. Enteric fermentation is a natural process that's hard to stop without changing diets or herd sizes. Similarly, flooded rice paddies create anaerobic conditions that microbes love, releasing methane bubbles. Waste (landfills and wastewater) contributes 4.94 million tonnes (13.7%), and fossil-fuel operations (coal mining, oil and gas) add 4.28 million tonnes (11.9%). Other sources make up the remaining 4.4%. ## Which sector is growing fastest? The share of methane from fossil-fuel operations has risen the fastest. In 2015, coal mines and oil-and-gas fields contributed 8.3% of India's methane; by 2024, that share reached 11.9%. Agriculture's share slipped from 75% to 69.9%, even though its absolute emissions still grew from 23.26 million tonnes to 25.14 million tonnes. Waste also edged up slightly from 11.9% to 13.7%. [Coal mining in India](/articles/how-dependent-is-india-on-coal/) has expanded to meet power demand, and as mines get deeper, they release more trapped gas. Oil and gas operations, from aging pipelines to new gas fields, also leak methane during extraction and transport. The upshot: while cattle and rice still dominate the pie, the fastest growth is in point-source fossil methane, which is physically concentrated at mines and wells and therefore easier to capture. ## Can we name the biggest methane hotspots? Yes, and they are almost all coal mines. Climate TRACE's asset-level data lists the top point sources in units of CO2 equivalent over 100 years (blended gases). The top two are not coal mines but giant onshore oil-and-gas producing regions: the Cambay basin (12.17 million tonnes CO2e) and the Assam region (9.09 million tonnes CO2e). After that, the list is dominated by opencast coal mines run by Coal India subsidiaries. Dipka coal mine in Chhattisgarh emits 3.58 million tonnes CO2e, followed by Nigahi, Dudhichua, Gevra, Kusmunda, and Lingaraj. These are all state-owned. Refineries were excluded because their emissions are mostly CO2 from combustion, not methane leaks. ## What about the landfills we hear about? Landfills are often in the news, but individually they are much smaller sources than the coal mines. The top waste methane site is the landfill at Majura Taluka in Surat, at 5,81,252 tonnes CO2e. Ahmedabad's Pirana follows at 5,51,775 tonnes, and Delhi's Ghazipur at 4,86,405 tonnes. Others include Perugundi, Bhalaswa, and Dhapa. While these sites are significant locally, they are dwarfed by the fossil-fuel point sources. Landfill methane estimates carry high uncertainty because gas generation depends on organic waste composition, how sealed the site is, and local climate, unlike well-mapped coal mines. ## Do two different ways of counting India's methane agree? They now do, and that convergence is the most reassuring finding in this data. Climate TRACE, built from satellite observations and bottom-up accounting, and Climate Watch, a modelled reconstruction that fills gaps between official reports, are two independent estimates. In 2015, Climate TRACE reported 31 million tonnes while Climate Watch reported 33.21 million tonnes, a gap of 6.7%. By 2023, the two were nearly identical: Climate TRACE 35.27 million tonnes versus Climate Watch 35.13 million tonnes, a difference of just 0.4%. Two different methods landing close makes both more credible. It shows both approaches are homing in on a consistent estimate, giving confidence that the numbers are roughly right. ## What about agriculture methane specifically? The two estimates broadly agree on agriculture, though the gap between them is wider and bumpier than in the other sectors. Climate TRACE consistently reports higher agriculture methane: in 2023, it was 25.1 million tonnes versus Climate Watch's 23.53 million tonnes, a difference of 6.7%. That offset has ranged from about 3.5% to 8.6% over the years, with no clear upward or downward trend. A persistent gap like this usually reflects a methodological difference, such as different emission factors for livestock or rice, rather than a growing error. Both agree on the rising trend. ## Does fossil-fuel methane check out? The agreement on fossil-fuel methane is the tightest of all. In 2015, Climate TRACE gave 2.56 million tonnes while Climate Watch gave 3.48 million tonnes, a discrepancy of 26.5%. By 2023, the two were essentially the same: Climate TRACE 3.72 million tonnes, Climate Watch 3.7 million tonnes, a gap of just 0.5%. This means the fastest-growing component of India's methane emissions is now verified by two independent methods. It's a strong signal that coal-mine and oil-gas methane are real and rising. ## How to read these numbers Climate TRACE uses satellite-informed, bottom-up models to estimate emissions for each facility and sector. It is not a direct reading from a methane sensor; it is an informed calculation. Climate Watch's figure is a separate modelled reconstruction from CAIT and PIK, built to fill the years between countries' sparse official submissions. Both are estimates, not measurements. The asset-level data is reported in CO2e over 100 years, blending methane with other gases, so the hotspot ranking is a ranking of climate impact, not pure methane tonnage. India's own official Biennial Update Reports (BUR-3 for 2016, submitted 2021; BUR-4 for 2020, submitted December 2024) are snapshots years apart, not a time series, which is common for non-Annex I countries. Climate Watch lacks a separate waste sector series for India, so no second independent estimate exists to check Climate TRACE's landfill-and-wastewater figure. That is a genuine open question. ## Sources - Climate TRACE emissions data: climate.climatetrace.emissions_by_sector.total, agriculture, waste, fossil_fuel_operations - Climate Watch modelled reconstruction from CAIT and PIK, accessed via Indica's derived comparison series - Asset-level point source data from Climate TRACE, filtered for India's top methane-relevant sources --- Source: [This Indian Life](https://thisindianlife.today/articles/indias-methane-problem/) · Updated 2026-07-01. Licensed CC BY 4.0. Please cite as "This Indian Life — https://thisindianlife.today".