In the high-stakes drama of global warming, carbon dioxide is the undisputed Beyoncé: it gets all the headlines, dominates the stage, and stays in the atmosphere for centuries like a legacy act that refuses to retire. But while we’ve been obsessing over CO₂, a rowdy group of "super pollutants" has been trashtalking the planet in the wings, and they’re much more dangerous in the short term.
Enter the short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs), a motley crew consisting of methane, black carbon, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and tropospheric ozone. They don’t have CO₂’s staying power, but they pack a punch that would make a heavyweight boxer blush.
“Historically, there was very little known about SLCPs and their role as a climate forcing agent,” Zerin Osho, director of the India programme at the Washington DC-headquartered Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD), told The Telegraph Online.
“It’s only of late that we understand how they’re making the near-term impacts of climate change much worse than what CO₂ would have done in the longer term”.
‘Payday loan’ of pollutants
If CO₂ is like a long-term mortgage on the planet’s future, the SLCPs are a high-interest payday loan. They might only stay in the atmosphere for a few weeks (like black carbon) or a decade (like methane), but their warming potential is astronomical.
Take methane. Since the pre-industrial era, human-caused methane has been responsible for about 65 per cent as much warming as CO₂, per scientists. Then there’s black carbon, essentially the soot from your neighbour’s leaf-burning or a diesel exhaust. It hangs around for just a couple of weeks, but its global warming potential is a staggering 50,000 to 51,000 times higher than CO₂.
In India, this isn't just an academic exercise. For every 50 million tonnes of methane we fail to cut, we effectively set fire to 150 gigatonnes of our remaining CO₂ budget.
The Global South’s unwanted gift
Why isn't India talking about this more? According to Osho, it’s a mix of history and uncomfortable global politics. Because developed nations outsourced their manufacturing to avoid high labour costs, the Global South, including India, has become an "outsized SLCP emission hotspot".
“If SLCPs are spoken of more relevantly, the politics is going to involve trade, financing, and the competitive edge of manufacturing,” Osho explained.
Essentially, talking about methane and soot means talking about how the world actually makes things, which is a conversation many would rather avoid.
The paracetamol problem
India’s current strategy for air pollution is often a series of frantic, city-specific bans, like Delhi’s driving rules or the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP). Osho is blunt about why these fail: "You may try to treat the symptoms of an underlying disease by giving somebody a paracetamol; it doesn’t fix you".
The "disease" is that air doesn't care about state borders. When a factory in Panipat bellows smoke, that black carbon doesn't stop at the Delhi line to show its ID. “The climate and wind and the weather does not necessarily understand state borders,” said Osho. To fix it, India needs an "airshed approach"—managing entire geographic regions based on how the wind actually blows.
Himachal, Haryana, Punjab wake up
While the national conversation lags, some states are finally doing the math. In February 2026, Himachal Pradesh launched the state’s first comprehensive roadmap to tackle these "super pollutants," joining Haryana and Punjab in creating scientific baselines for non-CO₂ gases.
For a state like Himachal, this is about survival. Black carbon isn't just an eyesore; it settles on Himalayan glaciers, darkening the ice and making it melt faster, which threatens everything from hydropower to drinking water.
“We cannot change what we cannot measure,” Osho remarked of these new reports, which act as a “decision-support framework” for investors and local leaders.
How to stop the spike
The good news? The solutions already exist, they're cost-effective, and they don't require inventing cold fusion. Osho’s top three "to-do" items for the administration are simple but transformative:
1. The Dual Strategy: Stop treating climate change like it's only a CO₂ problem. We need a "sprint" to cut the SLCPs now to prevent temperature spikes, while keeping the "marathon" pace on CO₂ decarbonisation.
2. Airshed Enforcement: Manage pollution where the wind goes, not where the map ends.
3. Scale the Tech: From scientifically accurate waste-to-energy plants (to stop the "garbage mountains" from leaking methane) to aggressive energy efficiency and EV policies.