The Arctic is warming roughly twice as fast as the global average. If greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase at current rates, this warming will lead to the widespread thawing of permafrost and the release of hundreds of billions of tonnes of CO2 and billions of tonnes of CH4 into the atmosphere. So far there have been no estimates of the possible extra economic impacts from permafrost emissions of CO2 and CH4.

Landfill disposal of municipal solid waste represents one of the largest anthropogenic global methane emission sources, and recent policy approaches have targeted significant reductions of these emissions to combat climate change in the US. The efficacy of active gas collection systems in the US was examined by analysing performance data, including fire occurrence, from more than 850 landfills. A generalized linear model showed that the operating status of a landfill—open and actively receiving waste or closed—was the most significant predictor of collection system performance.

Northern peatlands have been accumulating organic matter since the start of the Holocene, and are now a substantial store of terrestrial carbon. However, their current status as carbon sinks is less clear, because of the possible effects of climate change, air pollution, grazing and drainage etc., and the difficulties of accurate measurement with suitable time resolution. Such measurements are particularly lacking in the UK.