Air pollution and climate change have long been global issues of concern, with profound impacts on ecosystems and human health. Is there any previously undiscovered correlation between these two? Recently, Associate Professor Zheng Bo from Tsinghua University Shenzhen International Graduate School led an international team composed of scholars from China, France, and Germany to publish an important research result titled "Trends and interannual variations of global methane balance affected by air pollution" in the international journal Nature. This study innovatively proposes the integration of pollution reduction and carbon reduction, endowing "pollution reduction and carbon reduction" with a new connotation and providing a unique perspective and inspiration for climate and environmental policy research. The above research found that the generation and loss of methane "scavengers" - OH radicals are influenced by gases with strong chemical reactivity in the atmosphere, and one of the main sources of these reactive gases is air pollutants that are closely related to human production, life, and population health. Some air pollutants can accelerate the loss of methane. In the process of air pollution control, when people want to reduce a certain air pollutant but do not consider the role of that pollutant in methane loss, it may indirectly lead to a decrease in methane loss rate, thereby causing an increase in atmospheric methane concentration. ”Zheng Bo said that in previous studies, different academic groups often conducted research on air pollution and climate change separately. This discovery provides researchers with a new perspective, inspiring people to consider the potential correlation effects of climate change while addressing air pollution, and achieve coordinated reduction of pollution and carbon emissions. This innovative discovery has found a new important connection point between two important concepts in the field of atmospheric science - atmospheric pollution and climate change. It systematically explains how air pollutants affect methane loss and its source sink balance trends at a global scale, and reveals the need to comprehensively consider the synergistic effects between air quality and climate policies. (New Society)