The Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants


ccac logo enPollutants that are short-lived in the atmosphere such as methane, black carbon and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) together account for approximately one-third of current global warming, have significant impacts on public health, the environment, and world food productivity.

Fast action to reduce short-lived climate pollutants can have a direct impact on global warming, with the potential to reduce the warming expected by 2050 by as much as 0.5 Celsius degrees. At the same time, by 2030, such action can prevent millions of premature deaths, while also avoiding the annual loss of more than 30 million tons of crops. Moreover, many of these benefits can be achieved at low cost and with significant energy savings.

On February 16, 2012, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton launched the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants, a new global initiative to seize the opportunity of realizing concrete benefits on climate, health, food and energy resulting from reducing short-lived climate pollutants. The coalition will focus efforts on reducing black carbon, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and methane. The founding coalition partners are Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico, Sweden, and the United States, together with the UN Environment Programme.

The new coalition is the first effort to treat these pollutants together, as a collective challenge. It will catalyze new actions and highlight and bolster the work of existing efforts. The Coalition’s work will augment, not replace, global action to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2). The coalition will reduce short-lived climate pollutants by driving the development of national action plans and the adoption of policy priorities; building capacity among developing countries; mobilizing public and private funds for action; raising awareness globally; fostering regional and international cooperation, and; improving scientific understanding of the pollutant impacts and mitigation.

The pollutants targeted by this initiative remain in the atmosphere for only a few days to a few years after they are emitted. This is very short when compared to CO2, which remains in the atmosphere for approximately a century. This “shorter” atmospheric lifetime means that actions to reduce emissions will quickly lower atmospheric concentrations of these pollutants, yielding a relatively rapid climate response. Of the pollutants that will be targeted by this initiative, methane and black carbon stand out for their significant contribution to climate change, while HFCs are a rapidly increasing climate threat.

For more information see the Coalition on SLCP home page