White House to host summit on monitoring, reducing 'super pollutants' linked to climate change

July 23 (UPI) -- The White House on Tuesday announced efforts to track and reduce emissions so-called "super pollutants" that contribute to climate change.

The Biden administration said it would host a Tuesday White House Super Pollutant Summit to bring government officials together with environmental organizations, companies and others with the hope it will help different entities focus on tackling such gases as methane, hydrofluorocarbons, or HFC, and nitrous oxide, or N2O.

"Slashing emissions of these super-pollutants is the fastest way to tackle climate change and a critical component to reducing carbon dioxide -- while creating good-paying clean energy jobs, preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths annually due to respiratory illnesses and boosting food security," the administration said in a statement.

The administration also announced that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has signed an agreement with United Airlines to help monitor climate pollutants.

The project will use commercial aircraft to monitor pollutants such as carbon dioxide, methane, carbon monoxide and water vapor to "improve understanding of greenhouse gas emissions."

The State Department and NASA have committed to deploy 10 state-of-the-art monitoring systems to U.S. embassies to measure ozone and its precursors.

Tuesday's summit will also address a new public-private effort to use satellites to help detect methane "super-emitters."

The summit will also highlight industry leadership in reducing nitrous oxide emissions, and new initiatives to reduce domestic and global methane emissions.

"The World Bank announced that, with $10 million in U.S. funding, they are advancing the work of mainstreaming methane into their global development programming with a first batch of 15 country-led programs focused on reducing 10 million tons of methane from the livestock, rice, waste and sanitation sectors and benefiting over 100 million people," the administration said.