Carbon dioxide is the big daddy of greenhouse gases. Making up the bulk of our emissions and staying up in the atmosphere for many centuries, whether we’re successful or not at limiting global temperature rise boils down to what we do about CO2.
But it’s only part of the equation in global warming. A group of lesser-discussed climate pollutants are many times more powerful than carbon dioxide and could serve as an emergency brake on near-term warming. Even better: There’s reason to be cautiously optimistic.
So-called super pollutants — a group of greenhouse gases and aerosols including methane, black carbon, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and tropospheric ozone — are responsible for about 45% of warming to date, with carbon dioxide responsible for the other 55%. While these emissions exist in the atmosphere for a fraction of CO2’s centuries-long lifetime, they have a more potent warming effect.
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