by Johanna Depenthal, the Director of Project Research at nonprofit Cool Effect
Last fall, I kissed my infant daughter goodbye, wished my husband luck, and boarded a plane to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on a critical mission: to visit a landfill gas project and see firsthand how super pollutant mitigation could be our most powerful tool against the climate crisis.
Targeting super pollutants like methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) has taken center stage in the Verified Carbon Market (VCM) recently, and for good reason. Super pollutants, led by methane, make up roughly 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with emissions projected to grow in the coming years. Even more importantly, super pollutants have intense heat-trapping capabilities packed into relatively short lifespans, creating an outsized contribution to near-term global warming.
This makes super pollutants our worst enemies in terms of climate change, but our secret weapon in terms of mitigation. Depending on the gas, super pollutants trap anywhere from 80 to over 14,800 times as much heat as carbon dioxide on a 20-year timescale per unit mass. While carbon dioxide typically lingers in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years before being removed through natural processes, methane lasts about 12 years before disintegrating, nitrous oxide typically persists 121 years, and different types of CFCs and HFCs have highly variable lifetimes from a year to 640 years.
Many super pollutant emissions come from easily identified point sources. Unlike carbon dioxide emissions from the world’s approximately 1.4 billion cars, the majority of industrial nitrous oxide emissions come from just 21 adipic acid plants and approximately 580 nitric acid plants. Over 45,000 U.S. supermarkets probably contribute to super pollutants via refrigerant leaks and food waste – it’s a large number, but we can’t pretend they’re difficult to find. Aggressive cuts to super pollutant emissions could eliminate 0.6° C of expected warming by 2050, which is critical for keeping global temperature increases to 1.5° C.
Methane emissions alone need to be cut 40% relative to today’s levels by 2030 for that to happen. You can view satellite-detected methane plumes from your laptop using Carbon Mapper. At Cool Effect, we used Carbon Mapper to identify 30 landfills which collectively emit an estimated 22 million tCO2e (GWP-100) of methane annually. So far, 117,672 orphaned oil and gas wells have been catalogued in 27 U.S. states, but the nation’s estimated total is a million orphaned wells, plus another 3 million wells abandoned by existing companies. (Government programs will take 955 years to cap the identified wells at their current pace).
Relevant: Climate-Smart Rice Farming Gets Boost From Mitti Labs–TNC Partnership
The VCM is poised to scale super pollutant mitigation but hobbled by lack of funding. We know where the emissions are coming from, we have proven, cost-effective technology to mitigate here, and we have innovative companies – those named here and so many more – positioned in almost every sector. ClimeCo is tackling the nitrous oxide issue head-on, deploying highly efficient technology to the smokestacks of nylon and fertilizer factories around the world. Therm and Tradewater are retrofitting supermarket freezer sections with low-heat trapping refrigerants, detecting cooling system leaks, diverting excess food to food banks, and destroying stockpiles of outdated refrigerants.
Project developers like Agricapture, Mitti Labs, and Windfall Bio work with farmers to modify wetting and drying cycles used in rice cultivation, connect manure ponds to biodigestors, and convert methane to fertilizer using specialized microbes. Rebellion Energy, ClimateWells, and Inlandsis are addressing fossil methane emissions by capping hazardous oil and gas wells, fixing leaky pipelines, and filtering air from mines. Landfill gas project developers like those from my site visit, Biogas de Juárez, often fight the uphill battle to install expensive gas capture systems alone. Others have been fortunate to amplify impact through partnerships like Google’s recent Cool Effect-supported collaboration with Orizon Valorização de Resíduos.
Based on our exploratory conversations with project developers, Cool Effect identified a pathway to mitigate over 300 million tCO2e (GWP-100) of super pollutants by 2030 through project types targeting refrigerants, ozone-destroying substances, nitrous oxide, landfill gas, and well-capping alone – if there was market demand. A large portion of this mitigation could be achieved for under $20/tCO2e. That’s still a drop in the bucket compared to what’s necessary to tip the scales, but it’s one of many possible scenarios for super pollutant mitigation that’s within an ambitious reach.
Relevant: Cool Effect Launches $1M Catalyst Award To Boost Carbon Projects
There’s no silver bullet for solving the climate crisis. Especially in the face of regulatory roll-back, we need every tool in the VCM toolbox to decarbonize across sectors, stabilize and grow natural carbon sinks, and direct financing flows to where they are most needed. It won’t be easy, but if we can aggressively scale super pollutant mitigation enough to reduce near-term warming, we give ourselves and our portfolio of decarbonization, mitigation, and adaptation approaches time to work.
We slow the slide towards global tipping points. We increase the survival rates of the trees we plant or conserve today. We give technology-based removals like direct air capture time to mature. My daughter has time to go to college and develop a genius idea that will save us all (a mom can dream!). Don’t follow the VCM’s lead on super pollutant mitigation: take it to the next level. We’ll be right there with you – but first I’m off to visit another two landfills.
