If you have been paying attention to climate change over the past few years, a new term might have entered your vocabulary: super pollutants. These are pollutants many times more powerful than carbon dioxide, pound for pound, at warming the planet. They have rightly been getting a lot more attention. The White House even hosted a big super pollutant summit last year. 

But up until now, scientists didn’t have a lot of answers for how to deal with the biggest source of the most important super pollutant: methane. That might finally be starting to change. 

Methane alone is responsible for about 30% of global warming and causes significant harmful air pollution. The consensus among scientists is that cutting methane emissions is the fastest tool we have to slow warming. The question now isn’t why cut methane pollution, but how? 

Methane comes from different sources: landfills, sewer systems, oil and gas production, and coal mining. But the single biggest source of human-driven methane emissions is agriculture. Most of that comes from the world’s 1.5 billion cattle—and to a much lesser extent sheep and goats—who emit methane as part of their digestion process. The official name for this is livestock enteric methane, and it accounts for about 25% of all human-caused methane emissions—more than oil and gas (23%), landfills and wastewater (20%), and coal mining (12%). 

Most of the world’s cattle (about 75%) are in low and middle-income countries, where cattle numbers are projected to continue to climb to feed growing populations. So, how do we slash methane pollution in ways that can be scaled in developing countries without compromising food security? That is a tough challenge, but we might be on the cusp of key breakthroughs. 

Earlier this year, we brought together leading researchers, policy experts, and innovators from around the globe for the State of the Science Summit on Reducing Methane from Animal Agriculture. The takeaway is that scientists are making rapid progress toward unlocking solutions that significantly reduce methane from cattle without sacrificing animal productivity—or perhaps while even increasing it. The Summit also revealed growing alignment between researchers, producers, and financiers, which is necessary to turn research into real-world change. Three major categories of solutions in development are feeding, breeding, and vaccines. 

Let’s start with feeding. Last year marked a major milestone when the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first feed supplement for reducing methane emissions from dairy cattle, Bovaer®. Now approved in 68 countries, multiple high-quality studies have shown that Bovaer® cuts methane by an average of about 30%. This is just the first breakthrough to hit the global market—more are on the way.

Feed supplements hold a lot of potential in places where farmers are actively feeding their cattle, like dairy farms in the US and Europe. But the majority of global cattle live in pasture-based systems, and many never set foot in a barn or feedlot. In low and middle-income countries, the first task is typically to improve basic livestock nutrition, management, and health (unhealthy cows don’t produce much milk, but they do produce a lot of methane). The second task is laying the groundwork for more innovative methane reduction solutions that can eventually work in pasture-based systems.

Another big opportunity here is vaccines. Research is underway on vaccines that could cut emissions by as much as 20% per animal. But even vaccines with smaller methane reduction effects could have a significant impact. Vaccinating livestock has long been routine, including in many low and middle-income countries. So an anti-methane vaccine, once approved as safe and effective, could achieve widespread adoption globally. Vaccinating lots of cattle around the world would make a big dent in the global methane problem. Several efforts to develop methane vaccines are now underway, including by the Pirbright Institute and the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London—but more funding is needed from both donors and venture capitalists to accelerate progress. The Summit highlighted how these vaccines are being designed to work in the rumen environment—a scientific challenge but a breakthrough with transformative potential.

Perhaps the most promising opportunity is selective breeding. Some cattle naturally produce a lot less methane than others. It’s common for two cows in the same herd to vary in methane production by as much as 30%. Importantly, scientists have shown that this difference is heritable. That means that cattle can be selectively bred to produce less methane, just as farmers all over the world routinely breed animals for other desirable traits. The exciting news here is that emissions reductions from breeding are permanent (that new cow will always produce less methane) and compounding (each subsequent generation can lower emissions even more). The challenge is that the genes associated with methane are intertwined with other genetic characteristics in complex ways, so it isn’t as simple as selecting for basic genetic characteristics like height. Researchers are making progress—including through a new effort by the Bezos Earth Fund and Global Methane Hub’s R&D Accelerator—but more funding is needed to speed and scale these solutions.

 A key takeaway is that no single solution will suffice on its own, but a strategic stack of interventions tailored to local systems can. With additional research, it may even be possible to combine these different solutions within the same animal, such as selective breeding plus vaccines, to unlock even bigger methane reductions.

While scientific breakthroughs are coming, we can’t solve this problem without farmers, ranchers, and pastoralists around the world. That means we need to bring these solutions to market in ways that actually benefit farmers’ bottom lines. There are a range of financing options that could help do that: subsidies, carbon markets, and advance market commitments. But the common theme is that they need to provide stable funding to attract enough buyers and sellers to grow the market for these innovations. Financing insights at the Summit emphasized that investors and banks are more willing to lend when risk is shared, benchmarks are clear, and producers are supported by reliable partners across the value chain.

Over the past few years, a number of key organizations have launched catalytic investments that have helped build the current momentum, accelerating livestock enteric methane solutions. The task now is harnessing that momentum to get these solutions fully developed and scaled. With the fight against climate change at a critical moment, we need all the tools we can get—particularly for the biggest source of the biggest super pollutant. And the good news is: scientists are ready, producers are engaged, and a growing coalition of funders, innovators, and policy champions are poised to move from promise to progress.

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