{"id":2281,"date":"2026-07-27T18:16:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T23:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/?p=2281"},"modified":"2026-07-30T08:35:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T13:35:44","slug":"setting-a-price-on-superpollutants-the-economics-behind-cutting-near-term-climate-pollution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/2026\/07\/27\/setting-a-price-on-superpollutants-the-economics-behind-cutting-near-term-climate-pollution\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting a price on\u00a0superpollutants: The economics behind cutting near-term climate pollution\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Climate economists are typically obsessed with modeling, pricing and reducing a specific molecule: carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide pollution is the original villain that drives climate change and the extreme weather impacts that are already shocking our world. But beyond carbon dioxide, other polluting culprits behind climate change are rightfully getting increasing and urgent attention: methane and other superpollutants. It leaves an economist asking: how do we price actions on superpollutants to make sure we&#8217;re creating the biggest climate benefits with every dollar?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In my <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/2026\/04\/14\/cutting-pollution-is-cheaper-than-paying-for-the-damage-it-causes\/\">last blog post<\/a>, I proposed pulling nature into the world\u2019s compliance carbon markets as a major opportunity to start eliminating the <strong>53 billion tons of climate pollution we need to cut<\/strong>. Protecting and restoring nature helps us store more carbon, and release less of it into our atmosphere where it would fuel climate change. This is a long-term investment in a more stable, safe future: Removing even a single ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere today delivers benefits for over a century or more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But&nbsp;we\u2019re&nbsp;already seeing the impacts of a warming world today, such as&nbsp;the&nbsp;extreme weather&nbsp;we are&nbsp;anticipating&nbsp;from&nbsp;a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2026\/jun\/02\/prepare-for-imminent-return-of-el-nino-un-warns\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">strong&nbsp;El&nbsp;Ni\u00f1o&nbsp;season<\/a>&nbsp;this summer.&nbsp;As climate&nbsp;damages mount, and affordability looms large, the world is hungry for near-term, cost-effective climate solutions that&nbsp;can&nbsp;tackle warming&nbsp;immediately.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Enter&nbsp;superpollutants&nbsp;like methane&nbsp;(natural gas),&nbsp;hydrofluorocarbon (HFCs used in refrigerants and coolants)&nbsp;and&nbsp;black carbon&nbsp;(soot).&nbsp;These lesser-known pollutants also cause&nbsp;climate change, but&nbsp;on a different timeline&nbsp;than carbon.&nbsp;For example, emitting one ton of methane has about 80 times the warming effect as one ton of carbon&nbsp;over a&nbsp;20-year&nbsp;period.&nbsp;But the warming effects of methane die off in a matter of decades,&nbsp;whereas&nbsp;the effects of carbon linger for&nbsp;centuries.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/32\/files\/\/EmptyName-18-1new.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"647\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/32\/files\/\/EmptyName-18-1new-1024x647.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2285\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/32\/files\/EmptyName-18-1new-1024x647.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/32\/files\/EmptyName-18-1new-300x190.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/32\/files\/EmptyName-18-1new-768x485.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/32\/files\/EmptyName-18-1new.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">&#8216;Flaring&#8217; at oil and gas wells is one example where methane may be emitted into the atmosphere. Photo credit: Nick Simonite.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Most&nbsp;superpollutants&nbsp;have&nbsp;a similar pattern:&nbsp;severe short-term effects, but those effects&nbsp;die off&nbsp;rapidly.&nbsp;This is helpful to know because the&nbsp;reverse is also true: Avoiding emissions of&nbsp;superpollutants&nbsp;can have rapid cooling effects, so cutting&nbsp;them&nbsp;is one of the fastest, most reliable ways to slow warming in our&nbsp;own&nbsp;lifetimes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>We have the technology to make these reductions, so why haven\u2019t we scaled these&nbsp;solutions&nbsp;already?<\/strong> In many cases, we know how to find methane leaks, recover refrigerants, reduce&nbsp;soot&nbsp;and improve inefficient systems. The harder problem is economic: our markets and accounting systems do not yet consistently tell investors,&nbsp;companies&nbsp;and governments how to compare a ton of methane or HFC reductions with a ton of carbon dioxide reductions.&nbsp;Such an \u201cexchange rate\u201d between these pollutants is&nbsp;essential&nbsp;for building&nbsp;superpollutants&nbsp;into markets.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This observation raises a couple of important questions:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How important is it to cut&nbsp;superpollutants?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Or, more precisely, how much effort should&nbsp;we&nbsp;devote&nbsp;to cutting&nbsp;superpollutants&nbsp;versus carbon&nbsp;dioxide?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can rely on decades of economics research telling us how much harm is avoided by cutting a ton of pollution. The data shows that cutting a ton of carbon dioxide avoids around <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rff.org\/publications\/explainers\/social-cost-carbon-101\/\">$200<\/a>&nbsp;in&nbsp;harm (accounting for the benefits over time), and cutting a ton of methane avoids around <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccacoalition.org\/content\/benefits-and-costs-mitigating-methane-emissions\">$4,000<\/a> in harm (similarly accounting for the benefits over time). Values like these can help companies, governments, and even households make decisions about where to maximize their climate impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How much progress can we expect to make if we tackle superpollutants?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, methane and other superpollutants are causing about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccacoalition.org\/content\/super-pollutants\">45 percent of warming<\/a>. If we were to completely cut away superpollutants, we could reduce our 53 billion ton pollution problem down by about <a href=\"https:\/\/carboncontainmentlab.org\/documents\/cc-lab-x-calyx-global-superpollutants.pdf\">13&nbsp;billion tons<\/a>. That\u2019s a huge contribution \u2013 larger than all <a href=\"https:\/\/edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu\/report_2025\">emissions from the US and Europe combined<\/a> \u2013 and it would rapidly cool the planet. Reducing superpollutants gives us an immediate edge in the fight against climate change by slowing warming in the next five to ten years. This could help us avert near-term economic losses from climate impacts, while buying us time to decarbonize harder sectors like heavy industry and aviation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One hugely beneficial feature of&nbsp;superpollutants&nbsp;is that,&nbsp;generally speaking,&nbsp;people aren\u2019t emitting them on purpose.&nbsp;&nbsp;A huge fraction of&nbsp;methane and HFC&nbsp;pollution&nbsp;are&nbsp;leaking&nbsp;at oil and gas facilities&nbsp;and&nbsp;infrastructure or&nbsp;cooling and refrigeration systems.&nbsp;If we can find the leaks (for example, with new sensors and satellites), we can&nbsp;often&nbsp;fix them easily.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How can we accurately price superpollutants in compliance carbon markets?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>An economist would say that the hardest challenge in bringing&nbsp;superpollutants&nbsp;into compliance markets is not whether they matter, but how we can value them correctly.&nbsp;<\/strong>Carbon markets were built around carbon dioxide, which stays in the atmosphere for&nbsp;a very long&nbsp;time.&nbsp;But because&nbsp;superpollutants&nbsp;cause damage on&nbsp;a very different&nbsp;timescale, we&nbsp;cannot&nbsp;simply&nbsp;&#8220;price\u201d&nbsp;a ton of methane or an&nbsp;HFC&nbsp;the same way we&nbsp;price&nbsp;a ton of carbon dioxide. We also should not rely on shortcuts that capture only part of the story.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One&nbsp;approach is to ask a practical question: how much climate damage do we avoid when we reduce one pollutant compared with another? That framing allows us to value reductions based on their real-world benefits, including timing,&nbsp;scale&nbsp;and avoided harm, rather than relying only on physical warming metrics&nbsp;over arbitrary&nbsp;time-scales.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/32\/files\/\/kenny-eliason-SvhXD3kPSTY-unsplash.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"529\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/32\/files\/\/kenny-eliason-SvhXD3kPSTY-unsplash-1024x529.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2286\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/32\/files\/kenny-eliason-SvhXD3kPSTY-unsplash-1024x529.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/32\/files\/kenny-eliason-SvhXD3kPSTY-unsplash-300x155.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/32\/files\/kenny-eliason-SvhXD3kPSTY-unsplash-768x397.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/32\/files\/kenny-eliason-SvhXD3kPSTY-unsplash.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The dairy aisle in your grocery store represents a range of superpollutants: Dairy cows and cattle burp out methane; meanwhile, refrigerant super pollutants are human-made gases like hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) used in air conditioning and refrigeration. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Getting&nbsp;this right matters&nbsp;because markets need a common yardstick. Companies, governments,&nbsp;philanthropies&nbsp;and investors are increasingly looking for climate solutions that are fast,&nbsp;measurable&nbsp;and cost-effective. But without a clearer way to compare&nbsp;different kinds&nbsp;of pollution reductions, capital will not always flow to&nbsp;solutions&nbsp;that can deliver the greatest benefit per dollar.&nbsp;That is the beauty of bringing&nbsp;superpollutants&nbsp;more fully into compliance markets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Where carbon markets already exist, we should create ways for high-quality&nbsp;superpollutant&nbsp;reductions to be valued alongside carbon&nbsp;dioxide&nbsp;reductions using economically sound methods. <\/strong>Where markets do not yet exist,&nbsp;exchange-rate pricing&nbsp;can help decision-makers compare options and&nbsp;identify&nbsp;the most cost-effective opportunities.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The scale of the opportunity is significant. Our preliminary evidence suggests that up to 7 gigatons of&nbsp;superpollutant&nbsp;reductions, on a CO\u2082-equivalent basis, could be achieved globally at or below a reasonable benchmark price. That is why getting the economics right matters: it can help direct money toward the fastest, most affordable reductions available now.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The idea is&nbsp;simple. The&nbsp;world needs to cut climate pollution quickly and&nbsp;affordably&nbsp;so&nbsp;we need a way to compare&nbsp;very different&nbsp;solutions on common terms. That does not mean treating every pollutant&nbsp;the same. It means valuing each reduction in a way that reflects the damage it avoids and the speed at which it helps.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s&nbsp;growing demand\u2014especially from big tech and global consumer brands\u2014to invest in climate solutions with&nbsp;immediate, measurable impact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Addressing&nbsp;superpollutants&nbsp;is attractive because: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>they can move ahead outside of direct regulation<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>they are amenable to inclusion in compliance carbon markets<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>generally speaking, these emissions are unintentional and avoidable<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>we now have the technology to \u201csee\u201d them with cameras and satellites<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>their&nbsp;avoided harm is often 20 times larger than&nbsp;that for carbon dioxide<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the right&nbsp;economically-grounded&nbsp;exchange rates&nbsp;can help us&nbsp;maximize our climate progress per dollar spent.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>EDF and our academic partners are building exactly the framework the world needs right now: A blueprint grounded in science and economics for pricing, valuing, and investing in the most powerful climate solutions available, including&nbsp;ones to address&nbsp;superpollutants.&nbsp;We believe that by taking this surgical, rigorous,&nbsp;&#8220;Moneyball&#8221;&nbsp;style&nbsp;approach to climate&nbsp;action,&nbsp;we will make rapid, lasting climate solutions that&nbsp;support&nbsp;economic&nbsp;growth&nbsp;and&nbsp;don\u2019t&nbsp;break the bank.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Climate economists are typically obsessed with modeling, pricing and reducing a specific molecule: carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide pollution is the original villain that drives climate change and the extreme weather impacts that are already shocking our world. But beyond carbon dioxide, other polluting culprits behind climate change are rightfully getting increasing and urgent attention: methane &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153265,"featured_media":2286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[325,105915,43,158,16683,9306,105553],"tags":[105968,105924,105933,105927,106005],"coauthors":[105967],"class_list":["post-2281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cap-and-trade","category-climate-change","category-economics","category-emissions","category-international-agreement","category-market-101","category-social-cost-of-carbon","tag-carbon-markets","tag-economics","tag-energy-transition","tag-methane","tag-superpollutants"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Setting a price on\u00a0superpollutants: The economics behind cutting near-term climate pollution\u00a0 - Market Forces<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/2026\/07\/27\/setting-a-price-on-superpollutants-the-economics-behind-cutting-near-term-climate-pollution\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Setting a price on\u00a0superpollutants: The economics behind cutting near-term climate pollution\u00a0 - Market Forces\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Climate economists are typically obsessed with modeling, pricing and reducing a specific molecule: carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide pollution is the original villain that drives climate change and the extreme weather impacts that are already shocking our world. But beyond carbon dioxide, other polluting culprits behind climate change are rightfully getting increasing and urgent attention: methane ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/2026\/07\/27\/setting-a-price-on-superpollutants-the-economics-behind-cutting-near-term-climate-pollution\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Market Forces\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-27T23:16:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-07-30T13:35:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/32\/files\/\/kenny-eliason-SvhXD3kPSTY-unsplash.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Christopher Costello\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Christopher Costello\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.edf.org\\\/markets\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/27\\\/setting-a-price-on-superpollutants-the-economics-behind-cutting-near-term-climate-pollution\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.edf.org\\\/markets\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/27\\\/setting-a-price-on-superpollutants-the-economics-behind-cutting-near-term-climate-pollution\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Christopher Costello\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.edf.org\\\/markets\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b72ead24c2e4fd577d24ed450911e53f\"},\"headline\":\"Setting a price on\u00a0superpollutants: The economics behind cutting near-term climate pollution\u00a0\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-27T23:16:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-07-30T13:35:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.edf.org\\\/markets\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/27\\\/setting-a-price-on-superpollutants-the-economics-behind-cutting-near-term-climate-pollution\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1494,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.edf.org\\\/markets\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/27\\\/setting-a-price-on-superpollutants-the-economics-behind-cutting-near-term-climate-pollution\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.edf.org\\\/markets\\\/wp-content\\\/blogs.dir\\\/32\\\/files\\\/\\\/kenny-eliason-SvhXD3kPSTY-unsplash.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Carbon Markets\",\"Economics\",\"Energy Transition\",\"Methane\",\"Superpollutants\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Cap and Trade\",\"Climate Change\",\"Economics\",\"emissions\",\"International\",\"Markets 101\",\"Social Cost of Carbon\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.edf.org\\\/markets\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/27\\\/setting-a-price-on-superpollutants-the-economics-behind-cutting-near-term-climate-pollution\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.edf.org\\\/markets\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/27\\\/setting-a-price-on-superpollutants-the-economics-behind-cutting-near-term-climate-pollution\\\/\",\"name\":\"Setting a price on\u00a0superpollutants: The economics behind cutting near-term climate pollution\u00a0 - 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Carbon dioxide pollution is the original villain that drives climate change and the extreme weather impacts that are already shocking our world. 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