Washington, September 12 (RHC)-- The Donald Trump administration is planning to make it easier for oil and gas companies to pollute the atmosphere with methane gas, one of the most powerful greenhouse gases contributing to climate change.

According to reports from Washington, the Trump administration is planning to announce the rollback of the Obama-era rules requiring companies to monitor and repair methane leaks on oil and gas wells.  This comes despite warnings by scientists and experts of the dangers of such a move.

Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has warned of the risks of “runaway climate change,” calling on world leaders to take dramatic steps to limit greenhouse gas emissions within the next two years.

The UN chief said: “Climate change is the defining issue of our time, and we are at a defining moment.  We face a direct existential threat.  Climate change is moving faster than we are, and its speed has provoked a sonic boom SOS across our world.  If we do not change course by 2020, we risk missing the point where we can avoid runaway climate change, with disastrous consequences for people and all the natural systems that sustain us.”

And in related news, The Washington Post reports 1,600 U.S. federal workers have left the Environmental Protection Agency since President Trump took office -- a mass exodus that has shrunk the EPA’s workforce to levels not seen since the Reagan administration.  Among the EPA workers to depart the agency was scientist Ann Williamson, who left the EPA after 33 years, saying: “I did not want to any longer be any part of this administration’s nonsense.”