The burning of grasslands and forests for agriculture can release carbon monoxide and black carbon, which contribute to global warmingJonas Gratzer/Jonas Gratzer
Carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds don’t just poison the air we breathe. They also fuel chemical reactions in the atmosphere that heat the planet.
Of all the global warming that has happened since the pre-industrial era, about 15 per cent has been caused by emissions other than greenhouse gases, mainly carbon monoxide and VOCs. That is double the contribution of nitrous oxide, the third-most-common greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and methane.
But few countries include these common “indirect greenhouse gases” in their emissions reduction targets.
“There is a set of forgotten climate pollutants that are strongly contributing to today’s warming and could considerably slow down the rate of warming in the future if we start including them in our climate policies,” says Ilissa Ocko at Spark Climate Solutions, a non-profit organisation based in California, who co-authored a study calling for more attention on these gases.
