Download this issueMultiple benefits from stricter global vehicle emission controls
Non-CO2 air pollutants from motor vehicles have traditionally been controlled to protect air quality and health, but they also affect climate. In a new study, a global composition-climate model was used to examine the integrated impacts of adopting stringent EU air pollutant emission standards for road vehicles in 2015 in many developing countries.
Relative to a baseline scenario which assumed no extra controls on top of currently proposed or adopted standards, implementation of the tighter EU emissions and fuel standards as from 2015 would lead to annual benefits in 2030 and beyond of:
- 120,000–280,000 avoided premature air pollution-related deaths;
- 6.1–19.7 million metric tons of avoided ozone-related yield losses of major food crops;
- $US 0.6–2.4 trillion avoided health damage; and,
- $US 1.1–4.3 billion avoided agricultural damage.
Moreover, the tighter standards resulted in mitigation of approximately 0.2°C of northern hemisphere extratropical warming during 2040–2070. Note that there is significant uncertainty regarding the estimated cooling effect, primarily relating to black carbon and due to the poorly quantified indirect effects on clouds and albedo of this pollutant. Including the uncertainty range would show a cooling of between 0.03 and 0.34°C.
Tighter vehicle emission and fuel standards are thus extremely likely to mitigate short-term climate change in most cases, in addition to providing large improvements in human health and food security. These standards will not reduce CO2 emissions, however, which are required to mitigate long-term climate change.
Source: Climate, health, agricultural and economic impacts of tighter vehicle-emission standards. By D. Shindell, M. Walsh, et al. Published in Nature Climate Change, Vol 1, April 2011.
Europe should take an integrated approach to nitrogen management. This is the main message of the European Nitrogen Assessment, a new report launched during the "Nitrogen and Global Change" conference, in Edinburgh (UK) from 11–14 April, 2011.
The number of premature deaths in Europe caused by air pollutant emissions from international shipping is estimated to amount to approximately 49,500 in the year 2000, and rise to 53,200 in 2020.
There are sufficient resources to provide the world with renewable energy. The main constraint on development is public policy, that is the main message in a new IPCC report.
A handful of measures targeting black carbon and tropospheric ozone can reduce future global warming by 0.5°C, according to a UNEP and WMO report.
Germany's lignite power plants still dominate the CO2 list. Serbia is registering emissions for the first time and enters both the NOx list and the SO2 list.
Mercury emissions from coal-fired plants can be cut by well over 90 per cent, but this fact has so far been neglected in ongoing talks for a revised Heavy Metals Protocol.
As no revision of the European Air Quality legislation is planned until at least 2013, the EU has said it will focus on source-oriented legislation in the meantime. Often neglected in comparison to regulations concerning road vehicles, the so-called "non-road" sector, which includes locomotive ..
"Curbing mobility is not an option," says the European Commission in a new roadmap for the transport sector, expressing a view that immediately sparked criticism.
Prompt action is required to further reduce particulate matter, ground-level ozone, and nitrogen dioxide – an EU clean air strategy should be adopted in 2013.
Significant environmental improvements can be achieved while additional costs still stay well below 0.1 per cent of GDP. Moreover, health benefits alone outweigh the costs by ten times or more.
