Turkmenistan Starts Fixing World's Worst Methane Leaks — SkimNews
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- Methane traps more than 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide over a 20-year period and is responsible for 25% of current global heating, making leak-plugging disproportionately powerful for near-term climate outcomes
- In 2023, Guardian environment editor Damian Carrington reported on 1,000 super-emitting methane leaks spanning the globe, establishing the scale of the problem
- Turkmenistan, previously the worst country for methane mega-leaks, has now begun to plug them — described in the headline as a 'breakthrough'
- Some experts refer to stopping methane leaks as the climate 'emergency brake' because of the gas's outsized short-term warming potency
- The podcast reveals which major-emitting countries are still failing to act on their methane leaks despite the available fix
- Carrington discusses the findings with Madeleine Finlay on the Guardian's Science Weekly podcast
Why it matters: Because methane drives 25% of today's warming and traps 80x more heat than CO2 over 20 years, plugging super-emitter leaks delivers one of the cheapest, fastest climate wins available — and the world's previous worst offender (Turkmenistan) has finally started, while other major-emitting countries identified in the podcast remain inactive.
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