There are 10s/100s of pollutants. Hydrocarbons, VOCs, free radicals, dust, smog, microplastics, and more. Why are only CO2 emissions so universally used as a metric for climate targets? Surely measuring just the greenhouse effect isn’t sufficient as an indicator of overall climate health.
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CO2 is the current globally scary one that’ll likely impact all our lives.
Air pollution (VOCs, etc) is a big issue in cities and is also targeted by new rules in many places. For instance car/emissions free zones in many European cities, driving limitations in China, even straight up removal of arterial roads in some areas, etc.
Ozone depleting chemicals used to be huuge concern as well, but we’ve actually mostly curved the issue and the ozone layer is recovering. I’ve read near future sci fi written back then that assumed we’d need UN handouts of suncream, sunglasses and hats to avoid cancer.
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