A brief history of short-lived climate pollutants in environmental science and governance
By Niklas Löther, Research Trainee Interest in climate forcers other than CO2 is on the rise. The IPCC’s latest assessment report dedicates a full chapter to such substances, including gases like methane and HFCs but also aerosols like black carbon. Methane in particular then took centre stage at last year’s COP26, where over 100 states […]
The Global Methane Pledge: a timely new step in global climate governance
Photo by Markus Branse on Flickr By Harro van Asselt, Professor of Climate Law and Policy and Veera Pekkarinen, PhD Researcher The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) once again highlighted the need to drastically cut our greenhouse gas emissions to avert climate disruption. While for many years, measures to tackle […]
Using the Paris Agreement to strengthen action on methane
by Veera Pekkarinen. This article was first published in IISD/SDG Knowledge Hub on 13 January 2021. Photo by veeterzy on Unsplash. Methane can be characterized as a “super-pollutant”. While it stays in the atmosphere only for 12 years, it is up to 86 times more powerful in warming the climate in the short term than the most […]
More time for an energy revolution? Seizing the opportunity to slow down climate change by cutting emissions of short-lived climate pollutants
Kati Kulovesi, Yulia Yamineva and Veera Jerkku. There is an important ‘ambition gap’ between the climate change mitigation policies pledged by countries in context of the Paris Agreement and those needed to avoid dangerous climate change. Discussions on ways to step up climate change mitigation efforts commonly focus on ways to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. These indeed […]