Dive Brief:
- The White House announced strategies Tuesday to slash greenhouse gas emissions generated by climate super pollutants, which include methane, hydrofluorocarbons and nitrous oxide — gasses far more potent and harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide per ton.
- The Biden-Harris administration hosted a summit the same day, convening U.S. officials, environmental organizations, companies, philanthropic organizations and others to discuss how to “dramatically reduce” emissions from such pollutants.
- Solutions proposed included enhanced monitoring through commercial aircraft and satellites, installation of thermal reduction units to eliminate onsite nitrous oxide emissions and methane leak detection and sensing technologies backed by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Methane Super Emitter Program.
Dive Insight:
Climate super pollutants play a major role in increasing global temperatures as most of them are warming agents able to trap the Earth’s heat, according to the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. Some pollutants can also exacerbate climate change through altering atmospheric chemistry by increasing the levels of methane or carbon monoxide present, per the United Nations-backed initiative.
These pollutants are emitted from almost every industry globally, including fossil fuel production and distribution; power generation; agriculture; waste management; transportation and logistics; building facilities and more, according to the coalition.
“Half of today’s climate change is caused by super pollutant greenhouse gases,” the White House said in a press release. “Slashing emissions of these super-pollutants is the fastest way to tackle climate change and a critical complement to reducing carbon dioxide.”
Tuesday’s meeting concluded with several super pollutant detection and abatement strategies and proposals. United Airlines and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Monitoring Lab announced a collaboration that would leverage commercial aircraft to boost monitoring of climate pollutants such as methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.
Corporations also stepped in with solutions to address the super pollutant issue, per the White House’s press release. Ascend Performance Materials, which is the largest U.S. producer of adipic acid — most commonly used as an acidifier, gelling aid and sequestrant in food and confectionery products — unveiled plans to install an additional thermal reduction unit at its Florida facility to eliminate nitrous oxide emissions.
Within agriculture, U.S. Agency for International Development entered into new partnerships with nine private companies in Kenya, Nepal, and Tanzania to address food loss and waste, including during post-harvest handling. The U.S. also announced that $10 million in funding will be used to advance World Bank efforts reducing 10 million tons of methane from the livestock, rice, waste and sanitation sectors.
Agriculture makes up 35% of U.S. methane emissions, largely from livestock operations. The Biden administration in 2023 released a methane action plan highlighting the Agriculture Department’s strategies to improve manure management, spur innovation in animal feed and transform more livestock methane emissions into biogas fuel.
The U.S. has also committed $10 million in funding to the global Enteric Methane Accelerator, the world’s largest research effort for cost-effective solutions to reducing methane that’s released during the animal digestive process.
Sarah Zimmerman contributed to this story.