Exclusive: Fixing a leak can be simple and equivalent to closing a coal power station, making lack of action maddening, say analysts
The world’s worst mega-leaks of the potent greenhouse gas methane in 2025 have been revealed by an analysis of satellite data.
The super-polluting plumes from oil and gas facilities have a colossal heating impact on the climate but often result from poor maintenance and can be simple to fix. The assessment found dozens of mega-leaks, each having the same global heating impact as a coal-fired power station.
The researchers said it was “maddening” that such easy action to fight the climate crisis was not being taken, and said people should be angry. Stopping the leaks can even be free, given that captured gas can be sold – methane is the “natural gas” that fires power stations.
We have consumed roughly half of the planet’s fossil fuels that are known and not too difficult to access.
If we continue and consume the other half it won’t matter one shit by then if the problem of leaks have ‘fixed themselves’ because most of humanity will be dead, those that remain will live in a world with so much CO2 in the atmosphere that they’re in permanent cognitive impairment.