Slashing carbon dioxide emissions will not be sufficient to avert climate disaster unless the international community also acts boldly to stop releasing methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is playing an increasingly significant role in intensifying planetary heating and extreme weather.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will issue that warning on Monday in the first of three reports that together will constitute the United Nations’ sixth climate assessment since 1990, The Guardian reported Friday. According to the British newspaper, part one of the IPCC’s forthcoming report, which covers physical science, “will show in detail how close the world is to irreversible change.”