Methane Alert and Response System (MARS)

Why in News?

• The United Nations (UN) has recently 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.

Highlights

• The MARS was launched at the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 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.
• 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.
• 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.