Today: Carbon market registry Isometric is adding methane and HFCs to its list of removal methodologies; how China took over the world’s rare-earths industry; startup to fight wildfires with water cannons on drones.

Welcome back: Tech giant Google wants to tackle other forms of greenhouse emissions outside of carbon dioxide, and is buying credits to kick-start a new removals market.

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business's Yusuf Khan reports that while most people think of CO2 when it comes to GHG removal, Google now wants to also tackle gases like methane, hydrofluorocarbons, chlorofluorocarbons and nitrous oxide. Those gases have a much greater near-term impact on global warming, with methane far more potent in terms of its warming potential in the early years of its release into the atmosphere.

Google is purchasing up to 25,000 tons of superpollutant-destruction credits between now and 2030 from two organizations, Recoolit and Cool Effect. Google said that is roughly equivalent to 1 million tons of CO2 removal in the long term.

Google’s deal with Recoolit focuses on destroying pollutants like HFCs and CFCs found in devices like air conditioners and refrigerators. The startup is working with engineers in Indonesia to trap the gases when air conditioners are serviced or scrapped. Meanwhile, Cool Effect’s deal with Google will involve trapping and destroying methane emissions from a landfill site in the Brazilian city of Cuiabá.

• Methane warms the planet far more than carbon dioxide but dissipates more quickly. Solutions range from satellite monitoring to high-tech cattle feed. (WSJ)
• High-quality fashion materials such as wool or leather are responsible for an outsize share of the  industry’s methane footprint. (WSJ)
• West Virginia will unveil the Mountain State Plugging Fund to retire approximately 20,000 old oil and gas wells to prevent environmental contamination. (WSJ)

When China tightened restrictions on rare-earth exports this month, stunning the White House, it was the latest reminder of Beijing’s control over an industry vital to the world economy. Its dominance was decades in the making, the WSJ's Jon Emont reports.

Since the 1990s, China has used aggressive tactics to build up and maintain its lock over rare-earth minerals, which are essential to making magnets needed for electric vehicles, wind turbines, jet fighters and other products.

Beijing provided financial support to the country’s leading companies, encouraged them to snap up rare-earth assets abroad, and passed laws preventing foreign companies from buying rare-earth mines in China. It eventually consolidated its domestic industry from hundreds of businesses into a few giant players, giving it further leverage over prices.

When the U.S. tried to engineer a revival of its domestic industry a few years ago, China flooded the market with supply, throwing Western producers into a tailspin. As Western rare-earth companies’ valuations collapsed from the low prices caused by soaring Chinese production, they were forced to slow their expansions, and in some cases, sell their mines to Chinese buyers.

• A new critical minerals deal between the U.S. and Australia sparked a rally in mining stocks, as investors bet the alliance would pave the way for projects that could loosen China’s grip on commodities vital to defense and modern technologies. (WSJ)
• Four things to know about Beijing’s rare-earths bombshell. (WSJ)

Water-carrying drones that can quickly douse wildfires before they explode into massive conflagrations have long been a dream of technologists and forward-thinking first responders. Volatile conditions and the need to cover vast acreage still pose difficulties, but one startup says it’s close to making the vision a reality, WSJ Pro's Marc Vartabedian reports.

Sausalito, Calif.-based Seneca has raised a $60 million venture financing to further its development of drones equipped with autonomous dispatch and flying capabilities—and a double-barreled water cannon. So far, the drones have only extinguished test fires, but Seneca is expecting its first commercial real-world use next year. Eventually, the company wants to partner with fire departments and federal agencies across the American West.

Seneca hopes to use its drones on new ignitions while they are still small enough to extinguish, or keep from spreading, until firefighters arrive. Seneca did testing with the Aspen Fire Protection District in Colorado and the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District in Southern California, which were more open to moving quickly on new tech, as opposed to major agencies like Cal Fire or the Forest Service, the company said.

• Governments and financiers are increasingly looking at climate adaptation as a way of funding defense against extreme weather. (WSJ)
• The climate movement has long feared that talking about adaptation would signal defeat. But adaptation isn’t surrender—it’s survival. (WSJ)
• Investment is growing in plans to control flooding, address extreme heat and shore up infrastructure to withstand severe weather. (WSJ)

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• Cleveland-Cliffs reported rising demand for its steel in the third quarter, and said it will explore producing rare-earth minerals. (WSJ)
   
• General Motors posted surprisingly strong results in the face of tariffs, a slowing electric-vehicle market and supply crunches. (WSJ)
   
• Airbus and Cathay invest $70 million to accelerate production of sustainable aviation fuel. (ESG Today)
   
• Vestas said lower demand in Europe has pushed it to pause the planned construction of a new factory in Poland. (WSJ)
   

• GHG Protocol has proposed stricter disclosure rules that are set to make it more challenging for large power users to hit their climate targets. (FT)

• The huge demand for energy to power data centers will be a key focus for antitrust regulators in the future, says former DOJ official. (WSJ)
   
• The U.S. is now always paying to recover from disasters, and this is contributing to a larger and larger share of GDP growth. (Bloomberg)
   
• Small farmers will be exempted from the European Union’s new anti-deforestation regulation. (Dow Jones Risk Journal)
   
• Automakers have formed alliances to help them avoid EU fines on carbon emissions by buying credits from EV companies. (Reuters)

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business gives you an inside look at how companies are tackling sustainability. Send comments to bureau chief Perry Cleveland-Peck at perry.cleveland-peck@wsj.com and reporters Clara Hudson at clara.hudson@wsj.com and Yusuf Khan at yusuf.khan@wsj.com. Follow us on LinkedIn at perrycp, clara-hudson and yusuf_khan.