Nations, businesses agree to reduce pollutants by 2030

A meeting of ministers and high-level representatives of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) agreed to accelerate efforts to significantly reduce short-lived climate pollutants by the end of the next decade.

This will put the world on a "pathway that rapidly reduces warming in the near term and maximizes development, health, environmental, and food security benefits.

These efforts, they noted, must be complementary to aggressive carbon dioxide mitigation and a transition to a zero-carbon economy by mid-century.

Meeting on Sunday a day before the United Nations Secretary-General`s Climate Action Summit, the Coalition`s High-Level Assembly put forward a 2030 Vision Statement that aims to ensure the earth`s atmosphere continues to enable people and the planet to thrive by limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and drastically reducing air pollution.

In a message to the Assembly, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto reiterated the urgency required: "Climate change impacts the Arctic faster than any other region in the world. Reducing black carbon emissions is the most immediate way to limit further damage."

"As a partner of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, Finland is committed to this work on a global scale. Because this is not just a regional emergency. If we lose the Arctic, we lose the globe."

Watch Zee Business video below:

Short-lived climate pollutants like methane, black carbon and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) -- also known as super pollutants -- are many times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the planet but because they are short-lived in the atmosphere, preventing emissions can rapidly reduce the rate of warming.

Many are also dangerous air pollutants and reductions will benefit human health and ecosystems.