Climate action has a speed problem. Much of the work needed to reach net zero is structural. We have to build clean power, eliminate deforestation, expand electricity grids, electrify transport and industry, transform supply chains and develop new markets for low-carbon products.
None of that happens overnight, so alongside the long-term transformation, business and government should be asking what can be done today to slow warming over the next decade.
One answer is surprisingly straightforward: cut superpollutants.
Methane, black carbon, nitrous oxide and some refrigerants are responsible for roughly half of current warming, but receive a fraction of the attention given to carbon dioxide. Many are also relatively short-lived, meaning that reducing them can affect the rate of warming much faster. Temperatures are still likely to rise in the near-term due to carbon dioxide, but cutting superpollutants can reduce that increase.
The latest global methane assessment finds that fully deploying proven methane-cutting measures could avoid around 0.2°C of warming by 2050.
This does not make them an alternative to cutting carbon dioxide – we have to do both. Think of superpollutant action as an emergency brake: something capable of slowing near-term average temperature increases while we accelerate the much bigger transformation towards a clean, electrified economy.
Methane shows what’s possible
Methane is responsible for nearly 30% of the increase in global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution. Yet the International Energy Agency’s Global Methane Tracker finds no sign that methane emissions from global fossil-fuel operations are falling.
That is particularly frustrating because we know how to tackle much of the problem. The IEA estimates that around 70% of fossil-fuel methane emissions could be avoided using technologies that already exist. More than 35 million tonnes could be prevented at no net cost, because the value of the gas captured can exceed the cost of stopping it leaking into the atmosphere.
Existing technologies allow oil and gas companies to detect and repair leaks, replace equipment that routinely vents methane and capture gas that would otherwise be released or flared. Satellite technology is also making emissions increasingly difficult to hide. The IEA estimates that if countries had responded quickly to the large events detected by the UN’s Methane Alert and Response System last year, global oil and gas methane emissions could have been around six million tonnes lower.
Agriculture and waste – the other leading sources of methane emissions globally – similarly offer significant opportunities to reduce methane emissions with proven solutions available today. From capturing landfill gas to implementing new cultivation techniques for rice, many companies are already taking action today. But scaling these solutions will require more investment to meet upfront costs and deploy them much more widely.
The same principle applies across other powerful climate pollutants. Black carbon, produced by incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, is both a warming pollutant and a serious health hazard. Electrifying transport and replacing fossil fuel combustion therefore brings an immediate air-quality benefit alongside reducing carbon dioxide.
Fluorinated gases used in cooling systems can have an extremely powerful warming effect when they escape. As demand for cooling increases around the world, better equipment, maintenance, refrigerant management and deployment of lower-impact alternatives become increasingly important.
What should businesses do?
Companies should understand whether superpollutants are material within their own operations and value chains, and incorporate them into transition planning.
Oil, gas and coal companies should be eliminating avoidable methane leakage, venting and flaring. Businesses dependent on refrigeration and cooling should understand the gases used across their operations and supply chains and minimise leakage. Companies with large transport and logistics footprints can tackle combustion pollution as they electrify.
Some of the fastest and most cost-effective opportunities to reduce near-term warming sit outside the direct control of any individual company – from cutting methane at landfills and farms to tackling refrigerant leakage and black carbon. Businesses can help close that gap by working together to direct additional capital towards solutions capable of delivering measurable reductions at scale now.
Recently, companies including Google, Workday, Amazon and Salesforce backed a new effort to mobilise $100 million for projects that cut superpollutants through 2030. That momentum will be on display at the Superpollutants Action Summit in New York this September, where the focus will be on turning near-term climate action into measurable reductions in warming and risk.
Government needs to set the standard
Voluntary business action will not be enough on its own. Governments need to set clear rules that make proven solutions standard practice. That means tighter controls on methane leaks, venting and flaring; stronger standards for refrigerants and industrial pollutants; policies that support cleaner transport and industry; and better measurement and disclosure of emissions.
There are also economic and social arguments for reducing superpollutants. Methane leaking from an energy system is wasted product. Black carbon from diesel combustion comes with health costs. Limiting near-term warming can also reduce risks to food production from extreme heat, drought and flooding. Inefficient cooling wastes electricity as well as leaking refrigerants. The IEA calculates that cutting methane from oil and gas operations and eliminating non-emergency flaring could make around 200 billion cubic metres of additional natural gas available to markets each year.
Climate leadership needs two clocks
When business and government leaders gather at Climate Week in New York in a few weeks, much of the discussion will rightly focus on the investment and system change required to implement the economic and energy transition.
But climate leadership now needs to operate on two clocks. One measures the structural transformation of our economies: clean electricity, electrification, industrial transition and the phasing down and out of fossil-fuel use. The other asks what we can do in the next few years to limit worsening climate impacts while that transformation takes place.
Superpollutants belong on that second clock. We already have many of the technologies, and in some cases, the economics are already compelling.
None of this diminishes the imperative to cut carbon dioxide. Acting on superpollutants alongside CO₂ can limit near-term warming – reducing the human, economic and environmental losses we are already beginning to experience.
When every fraction of a degree matters, we cannot afford to leave some of the fastest climate solutions on the table.