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Acid rain from atmospheric pollution can reduce methane emissions from rice paddies by up to 24 per cent according to research led by Dr Vincent Gauci of The Open University. This is potentially a beneficial side effect of the high pollution levels China - the world’s largest producer of rice - is often associated with. Methane is 21 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. “The reduction in pollution happens during a stage of the lifecycle when the rice plant is producing grain. This period is normally associated with around half of all methane emissions from rice...

As delegates to a climate conference here debate how to reduce greenhouse gases, one of the problems — and a possible solution — lies in the rice fields that cover much of Thailand, the rest of Asia and beyond. Methane emissions from flooded rice paddies contribute to warming just as coal-fired power plants, automobile exhausts and other sources do with the carbon dioxide they release into the atmosphere. In fact, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meeting this week in Bangkok concludes that rice production was a main cause of rising methane emissions in the 20th century....