Immediate and targeted methane cuts from the fossil fuel industry could prevent nearly 1 million premature deaths due to ozone exposure by midcentury, the International Energy Agency said in a report released Wednesday.

The reductions would also avert 90 million metric tons of crop losses and about 85 billion hours of lost labor due to heat exposure, according to the report, which was prepared by the IEA, the United Nations Environment Programme and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. Avoiding those impacts provides roughly $260 billion in direct economic benefits. ``More than 75% of methane emissions from oil and gas operations and half of emissions from coal today can be abated with existing technology, often at low cost,” the IEA said in the report. ``The fossil fuel sector likely holds the largest potential for rapid and low-cost reductions in methane emissions.’’

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere. Halting releases from oil, gas and coal operations is one of the cheapest ways to fight global heating and could do more to slow climate change than almost any other single measure.

The report comes ahead of the COP28 summit in Dubai later this year, which is being hosted by Sultan Al Jaber, who is also group chief executive officer of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. This year’s meeting is expected to be more welcoming to representatives of the oil and gas sector, a shift that’s drawn criticism from climate activists who say the industry will seek to extend the life of fossil fuel assets despite the availability of cleaner alternatives.

Al Jaber has said the energy industry must help drive climate solutions. More than 20 private and state-owned oil and gas producers have committed to eliminating methane emissions and gas flaring by the end of the decade, he said earlier this month, without naming the companies.

But it’s not clear that those cuts will be big enough or will come soon enough to avert the impacts described in the IEA report. Methane is responsible for about 30% of the rise in temperatures since the Industrial Revolution, it said. Under current trajectories total anthropogenic methane emissions could increase by up to 13% in the decade through 2030, while in scenarios that limit warming to 1.5C releases of the gas fall by 30% to 60% over the same timeframe, the agency said.

To achieve the IEA’s Net Zero Emissions by 2050 scenario there must be no new conventional long lead time oil and gas projects approved for development after this year, nor new coal mines or coal mine life extensions, according to the report.