Reservoir Emissions / Press Releases

Large dams may be one of the single most important contributors to global warming, releasing 104 million metric tonnes of methane each year. This estimate was recently published in a peer-reviewed journal by Ivan Lima and colleagues from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE).

A bitter debate has broken out in the scientific community over hydropower’s contribution to global warming. A leading Brazil-based climate scientist calculates that startlingly high levels of greenhouse gases are emitted when water is released from the turbines and spillways of tropical dams. But hydro industry-backed researchers have fiercely attacked his work. In an effort to settle the debate, International Rivers is releasing a report, just prior to the UN Climate Change conference in Nairobi (Nov. 6-25), calling on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to determine hydropower’s culpability in global warming.