Is tackling super pollutants an emergency brake for climate change?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I think one way to put it is it's like the emergency brake that we can pull on climate change.
What are super pollutants and why should we care about them?
Have you heard of super pollutants? Honestly, I hadn't before I sat down with Tom Grylls for this episode, but it is something we really should be paying attention to. It's a term which helpfully groups together a bunch of short-lived, underexplored pollutants like black carbon, methane, and tropospheric ozone, where scientists have spotted an opportunity an emergency break. By reducing emissions, we can potentially have a quicker impact on global warming than decarbonization alone, while also bringing health benefits by improving the air we breathe. It sounds like a win-win. In this episode, Tom, head of super pollutants at the Clean Air Fund, is going to break down super pollutants' impact on our health and the climate.
why they are rising up the scientific agenda, and the huge opportunity for joint action.
If we just used all available technology around the world and financed the solutions, we could reduce black carbon emissions globally by 80%.
Welcome back to When Science Finds a Way, a podcast about the science changing the world. I'm your host, Alicia Wainwright.
How do super pollutants impact climate change and health?
Let's get into it. Hi, Tom. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Hi, really great to be here.
So, Tom, for something that could have such a big impact, I've never heard of super pollutants. So how long has this been on the scientific agenda and is this a relatively new focus?
So the more technical term, and the grouping and the language around this has been evolving over the last few decades, and in particular over the last few years, is short-lived climate pollutants or short-lived climate forces.
That doesn't have such a fun buzz.
Exactly. And I think that's the key. That's the reason that this language has really emerged over the last few years is to package up what the science community has been thinking about and has shown up in all of the international panel on climate changes assessment reports over the years into something that we can communicate effectively with different types of stakeholders, be that the public, be that policymakers. So super pollutants is basically a way to package that up.
What opportunities exist for reducing super pollutants?
So let's start there. Why don't you tell me what is a super pollutant?
So super pollutants are the gases and particles in the atmosphere that have a climate effect bigger than carbon dioxide per ton. So that's black carbon, tropospheric ozone, methane, HFCs, and nitrous oxide. And what that categorization does is it brings together three really important and powerful characteristics of what's going on in the atmosphere and what solutions we can implement to drive climate and health benefits. So super pollutants as a grouping are responsible for half of global warming to date, with the other half attributed to carbon dioxide. They are responsible for millions of premature deaths per year due to air pollution. Many of them also last in the atmosphere for a much shorter amount of time than carbon dioxide, which means that some of the benefits we can see by tackling these super pollutants can be realized much more quickly.
I feel like that's sort of the PR problem with climate change and climate health is that to fix carbon dioxide, this generation or perhaps the next might not get to see the results. But with something like a super pollutant within someone's lifetime, if you made improvements in this space, you could see some of that gain. Is that kind of a way to think about it?
How do black carbon emissions affect our environment?
Yeah, for sure. I think one way to put it is it's like the emergency brake that we can pull on climate change. So by tackling these super pollutants, we can avoid the temperature increase within the next decade. And on the health side, you can immediately and visually see the benefits in tackling these. So from an air pollution perspective, policies and measures like low emission zones or transitions to cleaner industrial processes. You can sometimes visually see in the city that the amount of pollution coming out the back of a tailpipe or the plume of smoke coming out of the
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:07
2
What are super pollutants and why should we care about them?
0:07–1:26
3
How do super pollutants impact climate change and health?
1:26–2:36
4
What opportunities exist for reducing super pollutants?
2:36–4:08
5
How do black carbon emissions affect our environment?
4:08–7:27
6
What successful interventions have been implemented in Nepal?
7:27–10:55
7
How does air pollution relate to climate change?
10:55–21:11
8
What health impacts are associated with black carbon?
21:11–39:28