Beyond CO₂: Why Methane Mitigation Is the Climate Opportunity Hiding in Plain Sight

Rice farming emits as much greenhouse gas as global aviation. A new accounting framework — and a new platform — are changing how buyers understand the value of acting now.

Mitti Labs · June 2026

Carbon dioxide gets most of the attention in climate conversations. But a class of gases known as super pollutants — methane chief among them — are responsible for between a third and half of the warming the planet has experienced to date. And we’re barely scratching the surface of what’s possible in addressing them.

That was the central message of the Beyond CO₂ Launch Webinar, co-hosted by Mitti Labs and Carbon Direct — a conversation between Dr. Mira Atria, VP of Decarbonization Science at Carbon Direct, and Devdutt Dalal, co-founder of Mitti Labs. Here’s what we covered.

What Are Super Pollutants, and Why Do They Matter Now?

Super pollutants are climate-warming gases other than CO₂. They include methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases — each with different atmospheric lifetimes and warming intensities. Methane, for instance, stays in the atmosphere for about 12 years. Over a 20-year window, one tonne of methane warms the planet approximately 80 times more than one tonne of CO₂.

This near-term potency is exactly what makes them such a compelling target. Reducing methane emissions today produces a measurable cooling effect almost immediately — something that CO₂ removal, which takes decades to materially affect warming trajectories, simply cannot do at the same speed.

Super pollutant mitigation also carries significant co-benefits beyond climate: improvements in air quality, reductions in respiratory and cardiovascular disease, and gains in food security. These are not rounding errors. They are material outcomes for the communities where this work happens.

The Accounting Problem: Why GWP-100 Understates the Opportunity

Most corporate climate reporting uses a metric called GWP-100 (Global Warming Potential over 100 years). It converts all greenhouse gases into a CO₂-equivalent number, which sounds logical — but it hides crucial information.

Consider: one megaton of CO₂ and 36 kilotons of methane produce the same GWP-100 value. That means they generate the same number of carbon credits under today’s standard accounting. But their climate behaviour is radically different. Methane causes intense, front-loaded warming that then dissipates. CO₂ causes lower but persistent warming that extends over centuries.

The metric you choose to compare these gases changes the reported warming value by nearly threefold. GWP-100 collapses two very different warming profiles into a single number and tells you they’re the same. They’re not.

Carbon Direct advocates for annual warming matching as a more accurate framework. Rather than forcing all gases into a single CO₂ equivalent, annual warming matching tracks the year-by-year temperature impact of each intervention. It preserves the time-resolved information that GWP-100 erases, giving companies a clearer picture of what their climate investments are actually doing.

The Portfolio Strategy: Pairing Methane Mitigation with Durable CDR

Neither super pollutant mitigation nor carbon dioxide removal (CDR) alone is sufficient for long-term climate stabilization — but together, they form a powerful portfolio.

Methane mitigation alone delivers a large and immediate cooling effect, but that benefit diminishes over time as the methane that would have been emitted dissipates from the atmosphere.

Durable CDR alone (direct air capture, biochar, enhanced weathering) removes CO₂ permanently, producing a smaller but persistent cooling effect over centuries.

Paired together, they produce what Carbon Direct calls a “consistently negative warming profile” — significant near-term cooling from the super pollutant work, sustained long-term cooling from the CDR, with no rebound or gap.

The economics are encouraging too. Research shows that adding methane mitigation alongside deferred CDR adds only a few dollars per tonne to a CDR portfolio. The incremental cost is modest; the incremental climate benefit is substantial.

Rice Farming: A Massive, Underserved Opportunity

Mitti Labs was built around one of the most compelling intersections of scale, impact, and tractability in climate: rice methane.

The numbers are stark. Rice farming occupies 160 million hectares across Asia — 40 million in India alone. The crop accounts for roughly 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions, on par with the entire aviation industry. Within the global methane stack, rice farming contributes 12–15% of total methane emissions.

The mechanism is straightforward: traditional continuous flooding of paddies creates anaerobic conditions in the soil, which produce methane. The same flooding also represents a staggering water burden — 5 to 10 million litres per hectare, or roughly 3,000 litres per kilogram of rice produced. Rice farming accounts for one third of global groundwater extraction.

The silver lining: the practice changes needed to reduce both methane emissions and water use are relatively simple for farmers to adopt. Mitti Labs has built its model around this — framing the pitch not as “carbon credits” but as “farming the same output with less water.” In regions where groundwater tables are in serious decline, that message resonates immediately.

How Mitti Labs Works: From Field to Credit

Reaching farmers at scale requires working through trusted intermediaries — local NGOs, farmer producer organisations, and implementation partners who already have relationships with farming communities. Mitti Labs recruits and trains hyperlocal field agents, typically from the same villages they serve, to deliver the behaviour change programme.

The monitoring and verification layer is where Mitti Labs distinguishes itself. Its digital MRV (measurement, reporting, and verification) system begins with a mobile app that captures farm boundary maps, farmer identification, and field data. Remote sensing then monitors whether practice changes are actually happening across enrolled farms, enabling real-time push notifications to field agents when intervention is needed.

Emissions reductions are quantified through greenhouse gas chamber studies conducted across multiple strata and geographies, with results fed into a biogeochemical model that allows for scalable, portable quantification. This is what enables Mitti Labs to issue what Gold Standard classifies as Tier 3 credits — the most rigorous measurement tier, using direct in-field measurements rather than default emissions factors.

Since launching in 2023, Mitti Labs has grown to approximately 70,000 hectares under climate-smart rice farming in India. That will reach 150,000 hectares this season, and 200,000 by year end. Expansions into Indonesia and the Philippines are underway.

Introducing the Beyond CO₂ Platform

One of the barriers to scaling super pollutant action is simply knowledge — buyers don’t always understand the science, the accounting frameworks, or the landscape of credible project developers working in this space.

The Beyond CO₂ platform, launched alongside this webinar, is designed to close that gap. It’s a living resource covering the science of super pollutants, the mechanics of annual warming matching, and a showcase of project developers — across rice methane and other sectors — doing the actual mitigation work. Carbon Direct’s research on super pollutant accounting and portfolio strategy is also available through the platform.

Questions from the Audience

What do these credits cost relative to CDR?

Super pollutant credits are significantly cheaper than CDR, typically in the tens of dollars per tonne, compared to CDR solutions that can range from tens to hundreds of dollars or more. This difference reflects the capital-intensive nature of CDR infrastructure versus the primarily operational cost structure of field-based methane programmes. Mitti Labs notes that one of its key priorities is ensuring that as costs fall through economies of scale and learning, more of the value flows back to farmers as incentives — not simply driving credit prices lower.

Can I use annual warming matching in my existing reporting?

GHG Protocol and SBTi currently require GWP-100 as the standard reporting metric. Annual warming matching is best understood as an “and” rather than an “or” — a best-in-class layer of analysis that gives companies a more precise picture of their actual climate impact across time horizons, without conflicting with existing compliance obligations.

If a farmer reverts to continuous flooding, does the benefit reverse?

Methane mitigation is a flow benefit, not a stock benefit. For every season a farmer practises the alternative water management, the methane that would have been emitted is permanently avoided. Credits are generated season by season — if a farmer reverts, they don’t generate credits for that period, but prior seasons’ reductions are not reversed. This is a fundamentally different risk profile from forest carbon, where a reversal can eliminate accumulated stock.

Is there enough supply to buy at meaningful volume now?

Yes. Issuances of super pollutant credits currently outpace retirements on the voluntary carbon market — there is available supply. The gap between corporate appetite and actual procurement is more a function of understanding than availability, which is part of what the Beyond CO₂ platform is designed to address.

Explore the Beyond CO₂ platform or get in touch to discuss what this means for your climate portfolio.

beyondco2.mittilabs.com