The fastest way to slow climate change now | Ilissa Ocko

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2021

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

"Cutting methane is the single fastest, most effective opportunity to reduce climate change risks in the near term," says atmospheric scientist Ilissa Ocko. That's because, unlike carbon dioxide, methane's warming power doesn't come from a gradual buildup over time but is almost entirely from recent emissions. Ocko identifies three main sources of methane pollution which, if addressed, could dramatically slow down the rate of global warming within years -- not decades. "This is the methane moment," Ocko says.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's TED Talks Daily. I'm your host, Elise Hu.
0:07.0	With climate change already devastating so many lives today, atmospheric scientist Elisa Oco
0:12.7	is working on ways to limit near-term damage to the planet, not just the damage that's projected
0:17.8	far in the future. That's why her work is focused on cutting methane.
0:22.6	In her talk at the Countdown Summit in 2021, she shares the tools we have in order to act fast on
0:28.9	climate change by cutting methane emissions in half. In the time it took me to walk on stage,
0:37.4	around 10 seconds,
0:39.4	more than 10,000 metric tons of climate warming gases
0:42.6	have been pumped into the atmosphere from human actions.
0:46.0	To provide some context on just how much that is,
0:49.7	that is the weight equivalent of 170,000 of me emitted in gas in 10 seconds?
0:57.1	99% of this pollution is carbon dioxide, CO2,
1:02.2	and we know we need to reduce it.
1:04.9	The other 1% is almost entirely methane,
1:09.1	which mostly comes from producing fossil fuels,
1:12.2	managing waste, and raising livestock.
1:15.1	But that 1% of methane
1:17.2	could cause more warming over the next 10 years
1:20.2	than all that CO2.
1:22.6	This is because methane absorbs a lot more energy per unit mass, for reasons relating to its molecular
1:30.4	structure and its ability to form other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. CO2 is important
1:37.0	because it can linger in the atmosphere long after it is emitted, which means we must achieve
	...

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