By Martina Otto, Head of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition Secretariat, hosted by United Nations Environment Programme
For decades, the climate change conversation has centered on carbon dioxide. Fair enough: the gas is the main driver of long-term global warming.
But over the years, working with governments, scientists and communities through the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, Ive come to see the power of an approach that addresses climate and air pollution together just as urgent, and far more immediate.
These pollutants including methane, black carbon and other powerful climate forcers are responsible for roughly half of the warming we are experiencing today.
Working on these pollutants over the past decade has changed how I think we need to see climate change. Not only as a long-term environmental crisis, but as a daily human struggle, one that affects the air we breathe, our health, and the strength of our economies.
Some of the clearest signals are not distant. They hang over our cities in polluted air, trap heat in our neighbourhoods, and place growing pressure on peoples health and livelihoods. I have visited cities where smoke hides the skyline, where children cannot play outside as they would breathe unsafe air, and where extreme heat makes each year harder than the last.
Climate and clean air go hand in hand
For too long, climate change and air pollution have been treated separately - different policies, different priorities, different teams in governments and organisations. But in reality, they are deeply connected its one atmosphere. Addressing them together is one of the biggest opportunities we have to improve health, strengthen economies, and reduce warming all at the same time.
Super pollutants are powerful precisely because they act fast. They drive warming, worsen respiratory diseases, damage crops, and strain economies. But cutting them delivers equally rapid benefits. That is why they are often described as the worlds climate emergency brake.
One of the most important lessons Ive learned is this: people should not have to choose between development and climate action. The best solutions deliver both.
When cities reduce methane emissions from waste by collecting organics and creating markets for products that use the waste as their input, they improve public health and create jobs. When households switch to clean cooking, families breathe safer air and we reduce pressure on forests. When countries stop methane leaks from oil and gas operations while advancing decarbonization, they slow warming and recover lost revenue. When cities invest in clean transport, we wean off fossil fuels, people become healthier and urban life improves.
This is what integrated climate and clean air action looks like and the economic case is becoming impossible to ignore.
Why acting early matters
What strikes me most is how immediate the benefits are. As the world races to limit warming one thing is clear: we will not go far enough, fast enough, without rapidly cutting super pollutants.
Fast action on super pollutants could avoid up to 0.6C of warming by 2050, helping keep the Paris Agreements 1.5C goal within reach as the world continues to decarbonize. Progress has been slow in part because climate, health, air quality and development are still too often addressed in silos, even competing for scarce resources, and that although people experience them together in daily life.
But this is beginning to change. At the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, we launched the Country Action Accelerator to help bridge this gap, supporting governments to coordinate across ministries, align finance and move from plans to implementation.
Seeing this work take shape in countries like Brazil, Cambodia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Nigeria and South Africa gives me hope. Because it shows that when we connect the dots, faster, more inclusive climate action becomes possible, and the benefits are felt by all.
About World Environment Day
World Environment Day, celebrated annually on 5 June, is one of the planet's largest platforms for environmental outreach and is led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). This year's edition, hosted by Azerbaijan, will focus on solutions to the climate crisis. See how you can get involved.
