Climate action on CO2 emissions alone won’t prevent extreme warming – study

(HRNW) – To control climate change, the world must go beyond cutting carbon dioxide emissions and curb lesser-known pollutants such as nitrous oxide playing a key role in warming the planet, new research suggests.

Decades of global climate discussions have focused on CO2 emissions, which are most abundant in the atmosphere. The common goal of reaching “net-zero” emissions refers most often to CO2 emissions alone.

Over the last year, more than 100 countries have pledged a 30% cut by 2030 to emissions from methane, another carbon-based greenhouse gas that is far more powerful at trapping heat than CO2. Most of those countries have yet to say how they will meet that deadline.

Meanwhile, scant attention has been paid to other warming pollutants, including black carbon, also called soot, which absorbs radiative heat, as well as hydrofluorocarbons found in refrigerants, and nitrous oxides. But together with methane, these pollutants are responsible for about half of the warming seen today, according to the study published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.