Abstract. There is growing international interest in mitigating climate change during the early part of this century by reducing emissions of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs), in addition to reducing emissions of CO₂. The SLCPs include methane (CH₄), black carbon aerosols (BC), tropospheric ozone (O₃) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). Recent studies have estimated that by mitigating emissions of CH₄, BC, and O₃ using available technologies, about 0.5 to 0.6 °C warming can be avoided by mid-21st century. Here we show that avoiding production and use of high-GWP (global warming potential) HFCs by using technologically feasible low-GWP substitutes to meet the increasing global demand can avoid as much as another 0.5 °C warming by the end of the century. This combined mitigation of SLCPs would cut the cumulative warming since 2005 by 50% at 2050 and by 60% at 2100 from the CO₂-only mitigation scenarios, significantly reducing the rate of warming and lowering the probability of exceeding the 2 °C warming threshold during this century.