The Other Half of Climate: Policy, Capital, and the Race to Scale Superpollutant Solutions

Learn how California is using satellite data to pull the emergency brake on global warming.

Methane and other short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) are responsible for nearly half of today’s net global warming. Because they exit the atmosphere quickly, reducing them can serve as an ‘emergency brake’ on rising temperatures. At the San Francisco Climate Week, UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) and the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD) brought together 80+ policymakers, scientists, technologists, and funders to discuss exactly how to ‘pull’ this brake – what solutions are scalable and what barriers stand in the way of rapid non-CO2 pollutant reduction.

Comparing it to a Warriors game, Cliff Rechtschaffen from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) noted that we are in the “second quarter” of the methane race, where most of the technologies exist, but regulatory and financial frameworks are lagging behind. California is already playing offense. Following the launch of Carbon Mapper Coalition’s methane satellite, Tanager-1, the state established the Satellite Methane Program (CalSMP) to detect methane plumes in real-time and alert operators on the ground to fix the leaks immediately. The program serves as the quintessential example of the synergy between policy, finance and technology, which starts with the move from theoretical estimates to physical reality.

It’s said that you cannot reduce what you cannot measure. Phil Duffy, Chief Scientist at Spark Climate Solutions, emphasized that global emission inventories often rely purely on estimations informed by generic or outdated emission factors, which leads to inaccuracies and under-calculation. The solution is then to develop measurement-informed inventories and direct mitigation processes, which use available technology solutions, ranging from satellites, drones, to sensors attached to airplane flyovers. According to Elena Berman, former CTO of Insight M, these technologies are market-ready, though what they lack are policy signals and financial backing to go big. 

CalSMP proves the model works. Since the program started in Q3 2025, 20+ satellite-detected plumes across California have been successfully mitigated. This was not an overnight success. As elaborated by CARB board member Rechtschaffen, CalSMP was only realized after a decade of research, pilots, political and financial alignment between public and private funding. After confidence was built in aerial measurement technology, the state invested $100M in acquiring satellite-detected methane data from Carbon Mapper as part of the Governor and Legislature’s California Climate Commitment budget agenda.

This is exactly the type of subnational leadership and measurable solutions we need to scale today in order to bring down climate-warming methane emissions. Coalitions like the Subnational Methane Action Coalition (SMAC), which CLEE is co-leading, are bridging policymakers and supporting global jurisdictions in adopting this “California model” of direct mitigation as well as other proven methane-abating technologies across sectors. 

However, a massive hurdle remains: The Math. Globally, the global warming potentials of methane and other SLCPs are calculated as CO2 equivalents over the span of 100 years (GWP100). Yet these superpollutants only last a few days to a few decades in the atmosphere, while being tens to thousands of times more powerful than CO2 at warming the planet. Current greenhouse gas accounting with a 100-year metric to price a 10-year superpollutant problem essentially flattens the harmful impact of these SLCPs. 

According to IGSD, fixing this math to reflect near-term warming potential could increase the credit allocations of superpollutant reduction projects by nearly 40% compared to accounting using GWP100 metrics. Private capital is waiting for robust Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) to move from the sidelines onto the field. By redesigning these market frameworks, we can transform near-term cooling activities from invisible scientific goals into bankable, high-integrity interventions that match the urgency of the climate crisis.

We have the tools to attain measurable methane reductions, now we need the ‘surge’ to align scientific urgency with political and financial frameworks. Advancing this alignment among policy, technology and finance is exactly what will move us into the “third-quarter” of the superpollutant race.

carbon accounting, clean technology, climate finance, Methane, Satellite Data, subnational climate policy, Superpollutants