Reducing methane leaks from oil and gas operations around the world could provide a relatively inexpensive way to fight climate change, according to a new report commissioned by the Environmental Defense Fund.

The amount of methane that escaped worldwide in 2012 was roughly 3.6 trillion cubic feet and would have been worth $30 billion on the market, said Kate Larsen, a director of the Rhodium Group, which produced the study. A country that produced that amount of gas would rank seventh in the world, coming in just after Russia, she said.

Methane, the major component of natural gas, is also a powerful greenhouse gas. It is valued as an alternative to coal because it produces half of the carbon dioxide that coal does when burned in power plants. But released directly into the atmosphere, methane has short-term climate effects that are much greater than those of carbon dioxide.

“Methane is both a serious climate challenge and also, in our view, a major untapped opportunity to start reversing the tide of global greenhouse gas emissions,” said Mark Brownstein, chief counsel for the environmental fund’s United States climate and energy program.