Climate Bombs - Tradewater
Pulling the Emergency Brake on Catastrophic Climate Change

Did you know...

Non-CO2 gases like methane, refrigerants, and halons are among the most potent greenhouse gases in existence, with some over 10,000 times more potent than CO2. These are also short-lived climate pollutants that cannot be removed from the atmosphere once leaked, accelerating climate change in the short term.

We need your help to address these gases at scale today and pull the emergency brake on catastrophic climate change, which will buy us more time to further decarbonize our world.

Help us pull the brake

This figure demonstrates how implementing the above-listed “emergency brake” climate solutions can help stabilize, then cut emissions by the early 2030s. Project Drawdown, 2023.
In recent years, leading scientists at the IPCC have determined that we will not be able to limit global warming to 1.5 °C and prevent catastrophic climate change without preventing emissions from non-CO2 gases like refrigerants and methane.

Additionally, Project Drawdown has identified cutting emissions from potent, short-lived climate pollutants like methane and refrigerants as “emergency brake” climate solutions that can bend the curve on climate change within the next decade—when we need it the most. Tradewater is working to tackle non-CO2 gases as quickly as possible, and as much as possible.

Maximize your climate action and support our efforts to reach 22 million tons of impact.

Contact us at info@tradewater.us today to learn more or request a quote, or give us your email address below and we’ll reach out.*
*Carbon offset credits subject to availability.

How we are addressing the problem

Tradewater is focused on two categories of non-CO2 gases: halocarbons (including refrigerants and halons) and methane.

  • We find, collect, and destroy halocarbons from equipment and stockpiles all over the world.
  • We permanently stop methane emissions by locating and plugging leaking and uncontrolled orphaned oil and gas wells.

    • By focusing on these potent non-CO2 gases, Tradewater will prevent the equivalent of over 3 million tons of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere every single year.
    Methane emissions from oil, gas and coal exploitation. (Mg/year/km2). NASA Earth Observatory, 2022.

    Methane

    Methane emissions have skyrocketed in recent years.

  • Methane is a short-lived climate pollutant with a global warming potential 84 times that of CO2 and is responsible for at least 25% of the global warming we’re experiencing today.
  • The IPCC recognizes the reduction of methane emissions as the most effective immediate strategy for slowing down warming.
  • Tradewater’s projects result in the plugging of leaking orphaned oil and gas wells, permanently preventing the current and future releases of methane and other toxic pollutants.
    • Refrigerants are a big problem—and they are everywhere.

  • The amount of CFC refrigerants at large and at risk of leaking is equivalent to 11 billion tons of CO2, mostly aggregated in small quantities all over the world.
  • The global warming potential of ozone-depleting refrigerant gas is up to 10,200 times that of CO2.
  • Tradewater permanently destroys refrigerant gases in ways that are environmentally safe, definitively measured, and verified.

    • Refrigerants

    Halons

    Halons are banned from production, but don’t have a clear end-of-life solution.

  • Halons accelerate climate change and deplete the ozone layer, and are up to 6,290 times more potent than CO2.
  • The amount of halons left in the world, if released, would equal close to the total annual emissions for the entire state of California — about 300 million tons of CO2e.
  • Tradewater’s projects ensure that the halons coming out of old systems are collected and destroyed responsibly and permanently.
    • Tradewater is committed to pursuing projects that meet multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals.
    UN SDG 1
    UN SDG 3
    UN SDG 9
    UN SDG 12
    UN SDG 13
    UN SDG 14
    UN SDG 15

    *SDGs vary based on project and project type

    High Quality. Trustworthy. Verified.

    To date, we have prevented over 6.9 million tons of CO2e from entering our atmosphere, and we have identified a global pathway to achieve 22 million tons of impact over the next few years. But we need your support.
    Permanent impact
    equal to

     7.5 million tons of CO2

    Providing High Quality, High Impact Carbon Offset Credits That Are:

    Permanent. The methods we utilize destroy refrigerants and halons and control methane leaks, permanently avoiding their release into the atmosphere.

    Additional. The non-CO2 gases that Tradewater targets would never be destroyed or controlled at scale if not for the funding made available through carbon markets.

    Accurate. Credits are linked to environmental benefits that are clear, measured, and precise. Our credits are third-party verified and issued by the leading carbon registries.

    Responsible. Our projects create economic benefits through the investment of over $40 million in local communities, and meet several UN Sustainable Development Goals.

    High Impact. Experts have identified our work as highly impactful and cost effective. Learn more at Giving Green.

    Join Our Current Partners

    We can support your climate goals by providing high-quality carbon credits, engage stakeholders on globally recognized climate solutions, and accelerate your ability to protect our planet and your business. Whether you want to add a minimal climate cost to each transaction, commit to a multi-year engagement, or something in between, we can customize our partnership to meet your needs. We work with companies of all sizes and across multiple industries.

    See some of our recent partners below and reach out to learn more.
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    Maximize your climate action and support our efforts to reach 22 million tons of impact.

    Contact us at info@tradewater.us today to learn more or request a quote, or give us your email address below and we’ll reach out.*
    *Carbon offset credits subject to availability.
    Featured on:
    Forbes x IETA

    Permanence

    Emission reductions are considered permanent if they are not reversible. In some projects, such as forestry or soil preservation, carbon offset credits are issued based upon the volume of CO2 that will be sequestered over future decades—but human actions and natural processes such as forest fires, disease, and soil tillage can disrupt those projects. When that happens, the emission reductions claimed by the project are reversed.

    The destruction of halocarbon does not carry this risk. All destruction activities in Tradewater’s projects are conducted pursuant to the Montreal Protocol , which requires “a destruction process” that “results in the permanent transformation, or decomposition of all or a significant portion of such substances.” Specifically, the destruction facilities Tradewater uses must meet or exceed the recommendations of the UN Technology & Economic Assessment Panel , which approves certain technologies to destroy halocarbons, including the requirement that the technology achieve a 99.99% or higher “destruction and removal efficiency.” Simply put, this means that Tradewater’s technologies ensure that over 99.99% of the chemicals are permanently destroyed. During the destruction process, a continuous emission monitoring system is used to ensure full destruction of the ODS collected.

    Accuracy

    Some carbon offset projects necessarily rely on estimations or assumptions when calculating the emission reductions from project activities. Forestry projects, where developers make assumptions about the carbon that will be sequestered over future decades if trees are conserved, are a perfect example. Such projects sometimes result in an overestimation of the environmental benefit of the project.

    Tradewater’s halocarbon projects avoid the issue of overestimation by consistently conducting extremely precise testing and measurement of the amount of refrigerant destroyed in each project.

  • Every container of ODS that Tradewater destroys is weighed by a third-party using regularly calibrated scales. The ODS is then sampled by a third-party and analyzed by an accredited refrigerant laboratory to determine its species and purity. These two steps combine to ensure that credits are issued only for the precise volume and type of refrigerant destroyed.
  • The destruction facilities that Tradewater uses continuously monitor the incineration process during destruction events to ensure that over 99.99% of the ODS is destroyed. This monitoring is mandated by regulatory protocols and is part of the verification process to which projects are subjected.
  • Tradewater accounts for the project emissions created during the collection, transport, and destruction of ODS, and the number of offsets issued is reduced by a corresponding amount. The protocols that we use also build in other reductions to account for substitute chemicals that will be used to replace the destroyed refrigerants. Tradewater publishes this information in the documentation for all its ODS destruction projects. These documents outline how the material was obtained, the project emissions calculations, the test results, and the amount and type of ODS chemicals destroyed, among other information.

    • Additionality

    It is a basic requirement of all carbon offset projects that the underlying project activities are additional. “Additional” means that the projects would not happen in the absence of a carbon market. Tradewater’s halocarbon projects simply would not happen – and the gases would be left to escape into the atmosphere – without the sale of the resulting carbon offset credits. This is because there is no mandate to collect and destroy these gases. It is still permissible to buy, sell, and use halocarbons that were produced before the ban. There are other reasons halocarbon destruction projects are additional:

    • There are no incentives or financial mechanisms to encourage halocarbon destruction. According to the International Energy Agency and United Nations Environment Program, “there is rarely funding nor incentive” to recover and destroy ozone depleting substances in storage tanks and discarded equipment. And collecting, transporting, and destroying halocarbons is time-intensive and expensive. The burden to collect and destroy these gases therefore remains prohibitive outside of carbon offset markets—meaning that if organizations like Tradewater do not do this work, nobody else will.
    • Countries are not focused on the need to collect and destroy halocarbons. The Montreal Protocol has been celebrated as a success because of its production ban. This success, however, ignores the legacy gases produced before the ban and is a blind spot for government regulators. In the U.S., for example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed a Vintaging Model in the 1990s to estimate the quantify of ozone depleting substances left in circulation. Based on the inputs and assumptions put into the model, the EPA predicted that no CFCs would be available for recovery beyond 2020 in the United States. But this prediction did not prove accurate. Tradewater has collected and destroyed more than 1.5 million pounds of CFCs globally in recent years and continues to identify thousands of pounds per week.
    • International carbon accounting standards do not require corporations to measure or track emissions tied to halocarbons, and refrigerants are specifically excluded from Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) commitments. These commitments derive from emissions reporting under the GHG Protocol, which requires companies to report on emissions only from new generation refrigerants, such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), but does not establish any obligation to report inventories or emissions of refrigerants still in use, such as CFCs and HCFCs. All these factors combine to make Tradewater’s carbon offset projects highly additional. As Giving Green, an initiative of IDinsight, concluded: “Tradewater would not exist without the offset market, so this element of additionality is clearly achieved.” The case for additionality is not so clear for some other project types, such as forestry and landfill gas carbon projects. For example, some forests are already being conserved for their beauty, or for use as parks, and generate carbon offset credits only because those conservation efforts do not yet have full formal protection in place to avoid deforestation in the future. Similarly, methane from landfills can be used to make electricity or captured as compressed natural gas, thereby creating additional revenue streams to support the activities, beyond the sale of carbon credits.