BANGKOK- Act fast and use the super-pollutant emergency brake to save lives and limit global warming. This is the message to governments and the private sector delivered by experts at the UN-hosted Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) annual conference this week in Bangkok.
They are urging climate negotiators at the upcoming Climate Change Conference in Antalya, COP 31, to create a formal roadmap to tackle air pollution and global warming at once,
Until now, UN Climate conferences have focused mainly on strategies to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas which is most responsible for global warming, long-term.
But super-pollutants, also known as short-lived climate pollutants, only remain in the atmosphere for weeks or at most, a decade or two – as compared to centuries for CO2. That means rapid reductions in these pollutants, most of which also are major contributors to air pollution, would also slow global warming significantly at a time when the world is ill-prepared for rapid changes.
Potential gains of $1.5 trillion a year
To convince governments, the experts cite estimated gains of $1.5 trillion a year for the global economy. Other numbers are equally stark; the experts hope it will persuade both finance and health ministries.
These numbers come from fresh assessments made by researchers in a CCAC report, Hidden Assets, which adds up the health and economic benefits of cutting super-pollutants, including methane, black carbon, and ozone.
What is CCAC?
The CCAC is a UN Environment Programme (UNEP)-hosted initiative.
Its 102 country partners and territories aren’t obliged to adopt or even consider its findings. Yet representatives from more that 60 countries signed up for the conference.
Those driving the coalition are keen to build momentum and political support for action by governments. “This translates into a language of policy that a finance ministry will understand,” Lorenzo Santucci, of a UN agency, ESCAP, said on the opening day, Tuesday.
Political case against pollution
“You will see benefits of this within one political cycle,” said Michael Rattinger of the Asian Development Bank at a plenary session. He was stressing how quickly political leaders can see the gains, compared with the decades it takes to see results from cutting CO2 emissions.
The super-pollutant approach calls for immediate but doable steps to cut air pollution and so avoid as much as 0.34°C of warming by 2050. This matters because, as the UN confirmed last month, overshooting the 1.5° is inevitable. The challenge now is to bring warming back down to 1.5°.
The conference’s theme is ‘To Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants’ (SLCPs), the technical term for super-pollutants.
What are super-pollutants?
Besides methane, ground-level ozone and black carbon, super-pollutants include Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). They are mostly emitted by burning fossil fuels and biomass, and by agriculture, especially meat production. The largest near-term climate benefits would be achieved with cuts in methane, ozone, black carbon and HFCs, the coolants used in air conditioners and refrigerators.
Short lived means the warming and pollution effects of these emissions last from minutes, like volatile organic compounds or VOCs, to about a decade, like methane. In contrast, CO2 emitted today will keep warming the planet for centuries.
Of all these, methane stands apart. It’s the second most impactful greenhouse gas after CO2. It is not itself an air pollutant, but it traps more heat far more powerfully than CO2, and it reacts with other chemicals to form ground-level ozone, a lethal air pollutant.
Methane comes from oil and gas production, from waste and agriculture, especially livestock, and stays in the air for about 10 to 12 years.
The Hidden Assets report puts a health cost now on global warming and air pollution. Steven Stone of UNEP told Health Policy Watch (HPW) that “the health costs actually impact now. They’re the here and now. They are lung disease, cancer, and respiratory problems. And this is what the hidden asset brings out. There’s a real advantage to dealing with it now, by avoiding these costs, which are market costs, their financial costs.”
Air pollution and climate change- the costs
By 2050, cases of stroke attributable to air pollution could rise 65%, heart attacks by 78% and dementia by 83% by 2050 in the no-action scenario. Every dollar invested can yield $15 in benefits, rising to $26 in Africa and $21 in South Asia.
Taking action will cut annual deaths from air pollution to about 5 million or fewer avoiding an estimated 144 million avoided deaths by 2100.
Without action, annual deaths attributable to air pollution will rise from about 7-8 million now to around 15 million annually by the end of 2100.
Taking action will cost $9 billion a year.
Inaction will cost $1.5 trillion a year.
Taking action will avoid 0.34°C of warming by 2050, and as much as 1.4°C by 2100.
Without action, warming will reach 3.2° by 2100; we’re now at about 1.5° above pre-industrial levels, the limit the 2015 Paris Agreement sought to ideally not cross.
Can CCAC succeed?
CCAC met in Bangkok in 2026, unveiling the launch of a report of the economic and health case for climate and clean air action.
Senior CCAC researchers hope the message from this month’s convening can echo in ways that the outcomes of COP conferences, the main global climate process, have not – precisely because it is different.
Additionally, COP agreements need consensus; CCAC countries join voluntarily, and each agreement is country-specific and not dependent on consensus by all members. So while incorporation into formal COP commitments would be optimal, it’s not a requirement for action.
Kevin Hicks, a senior author and project coordinator of Hidden Assets, told HPW that CCAC member-countries are increasingly writing SLCP measures into their national pledges, or Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
The commitments are updated by countries every five years, under the terms of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
NDC complements the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP negotiation process.
Says Hicks: “One of the things that you’re trying to do with the Hidden Assets report, with the economic assessment, was to show that you can mainstream air quality into the climate debate and still get climate progress.”
“You can get the benefits (of clean air) very soon, in the next 10 years,” Prof Shuxiao Wang of Tsinghua University, Beijing, told HPW. When clean air and climate action are integrated, countries can prioritise the sources with the greatest benefits, she says. But they must act fast.
‘World’s worst air pollution’
Delivering clean air in the Indo-Gangetic Plain and Himalayan Foothills, which Ashish Tiwari of the Kathmandu-headquartered International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) called the “World’s Worst Air Pollution” hotspot, will be hard.
Tiwari pointed out other challenges. The region has the “world’s most difficult geopolitical situation”, he said, referring to tensions between India, Pakistan and others. Air quality monitoring is still sparse: India needs 2,000 monitors but has about 600; Nepal has far fewer, he pointed out. While some countries agree on the goal of ‘35 by 35’ – reducing air pollution levels to 35 micrograms per cubic metre of PM2.5 by 2035 – but where is the financing, he asked.
To overcome these hurdles, Tiwari says, national air quality management plans need to be harmonised with regional efforts.
Delays in climate-pollution action
CCAC’s strategy may differ from the UNFCCC’s COP process, but the pace is similar.
It took 28 years for fossil fuels to be named in a final COP agreement (COP 28, in 2023). CCAC was launched in 2012; the scientists, Hicks says, gave action a five-year window. Fourteen years later, it is yet to pick up pace.
The CCAC researchers have made it easier for countries to act: they’ve listed 25 steps that cut air pollution, limit global warming, improve health outcomes and boost economic growth. That is a win-win, but to adopt them, government leaders need to see how they can also be a political win.
Image Credits: WMO, CCAC, CCAC, Clean Air Task Force , University of Chicago , Ashish Tiwari.
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