The Next Climate Moonshot: Super Pollutants and the Race to Arrest Warming
Event by: XPRIZE Foundation
Event format
In-person
Event duration
1 hour
Language
English
XPRIZE is exploring a broader climate moonshot focused on one of the most consequential targets for shifting the trajectory of global warming: super pollutants. A primary prize target is methane, responsible for roughly 30% of human-caused warming and widely recognized as the fastest major lever available to change the near-term warming trajectory.
At Climate Week, XPRIZE will convene a small group of methane leaders, super-pollutant experts and partners to share our emerging thinking around a Grand Prize that challenges teams to demonstrate credible pathways to prevent, destroy or remove super pollutants such as methane capable of scaling to meaningful, measurable near-term warming impact.
The ambition is to establish a common, outcome-oriented finish line while allowing fundamentally different solutions to compete toward it—from atmospheric methane removal and destruction to interventions in agriculture, livestock, waste streams, energy systems, and other high-impact sources. Complementary bonus awards could accelerate particularly important technology pathways or areas where innovation is needed.
This working session will introduce the emerging prize concept and invite input from leaders in the field on the appropriate scale of ambition, how warming impact should be quantified, which pathways could credibly reach that scale, and where targeted innovation awards could have the greatest catalytic effect.