ANTALYA, Türkiye, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- A summit held Thursday in the Turkish coastal city of Antalya on the sidelines of the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) secured more than 480 million U.S. dollars in new philanthropic commitments to accelerate global action on methane and other powerful greenhouse gases.
The Leaders-Level Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gases Summit, co-hosted by China, Britain and Brazil, and supported by the COP30 and COP31 Presidencies, also announced a 25-million-dollar boost for the Climate and Clean Air Coalition's Super Pollutant Country Action Accelerator, a global initiative designed to help nations implement rapid reduction plans, according to a statement on the COP31 website.
The new funding will accelerate methane reduction across energy, agriculture, and waste, alongside efforts targeting black carbon, clean cooking, transport, and cooling, the statement said.
The latest commitments bring total philanthropic funding to more than 1 billion dollars, building on more than 530 million dollars delivered since the Global Methane Pledge was launched in 2021, it added.
UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell emphasized that rapid action on methane and other short-lived super pollutants offers one of the fastest, cheapest, and most effective ways to curb near-term global heating.
"In a world of suffocating disasters, action on methane offers breathing space," Stiell said, noting that 70 percent of methane emissions in the oil and gas sector can be eliminated with existing technology at low or no net cost. ■
