Eight things the world must do to avoid the worst of climate change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published the “synthesis report” of its sixth assessment report (AR6) on Monday. Eight years in preparation, this mammoth report encompasses the entire range of human knowledge of the climate system, compiled by hundreds of scientists from thousands of academic papers, and published in four parts, in August 2021, February and April 2022, and March 2023.

The report drew together the most important findings – but also highlighted some key measures that governments and countries must take immediately if we are to avoid climate catastrophe:

Reduce methane

Sharp cuts to short-lived climate pollutants, methane chief among them, could cut more than half a degree from global heating. Produced from oil and gas operations and coalmines, and from animal husbandry and natural sources – such as decaying vegetation – methane is a greenhouse gas about 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. But it lasts only for about 20 years before degrading into CO2.

Durwood Zaelke, a peer review scientist for the IPCC’s AR6 report, and founder of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development in the US, says cutting it is “the best way to slow near-term warming – indeed the only way we know of, short of [geoengineering through] solar radiation management, carbon dioxide removal and methane removal, all of which are still speculative”.

Cutting it should be easy: the International Energy Agency found that plugging the leaks from fossil fuel operations was not only low-cost but in most cases actively profitable. Butmany of these operations are in countries with little interest in climate action – Russia is the worst offender, but even in the US, action has been feeble – and despite the Methane Pledge signed by close to 100 countries since 2021, methane emissions continue to rise strongly. The Guardian recently revealed 1,000 super-emitting methane leaks.