Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today will announce a $15 million, six-country coalition dedicated to curbing non-carbon dioxide pollutants that cause global warming.

The Climate and Clean Air Coalition, made up of the United States, Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico and Sweden and led by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), will target so-called short-lived “climate forcers.” Those substances — methane, black carbon and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) — remain in the atmosphere only days or weeks, unlike carbon dioxide, which lasts generations …

While diplomats at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) duly churn out decisions each year, the agreements increasingly are hailed for saving the U.N. process, not the planet. Even a potentially groundbreaking decision reached in Durban, South Africa, in December to begin negotiating a new global agreement that could see all major emitters cutting carbon won’t take effect until 2020. Scientists and activists warn this decade can’t just be one of waiting.

A need for prompt action

“We need something that has fast action to complement the deliberate pace of the U.N. process,” said Durwood Zaelke, the president and founder of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. “The non-C02 is ready to rock and roll today.”

For more on this story, visit: U.S. Joins Coalition to Cut Methane and Soot: Scientific American.