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Multiple Benefits Include Improved Air Quality and Human Health, Higher Crop Yields, Reduced Rate of Climate Change in the Near-Term and a Chance to Slow Serious Melting of the Arctic

New UNEP-WMO Assessment Complements Urgent Action Needed to Cut CO2 Emissions Under UN Climate Treaty

Bonn, 14 June 2011 - Fast action on pollutants such as black carbon, ground level ozone and methane may help limit near term global temperature rise and significantly increase the chances of keeping temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, and perhaps even 1.5 degrees C, a new assessment says.
Protecting the near-term climate is central to significantly cutting the risk of "amplified global climate change" linked with rapid and extensive loss of Arctic ice on both the land and at sea.
Fast action might also reduce losses of mountain glaciers linked in part with black carbon deposits while reducing projected warming in the Arctic over the coming decades by two thirds.
The scientists behind the assessment, coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), also point to numerous public health and food security opportunities above and beyond those linked with tackling climate change.
Big cuts in emissions of black carbon will improve respiratory health; reduce hospital admissions and days lost at work due to sickness, says the assessment whose Secretariat is provided by the Stockholm Environment Institute. Indeed close to 2.5 million premature deaths from outdoor air pollution could on average be avoided annually world-wide by 2030 with many of those lives saved being in Asia, it is estimated.
Big cuts in ground level ozone could also contribute to reduced crop damage equal to between one to four per cent of the annual global maize, rice, soybean and wheat production.
Cutting these so-called 'short-lived climate forcers' can have immediate climate, health and agricultural benefits, the report concludes. This is because, unlike carbon dioxide (CO2) which can remain in the atmosphere for centuries black carbon for example only persists for days or weeks.
The researchers however also underline the fact that while fast action on black carbon and ground level ozone could play a key role in limiting near-term climate, immediate and sustained action to cut back CO2 is crucial if temperature rises are to be limited over the long-term.
It is the combination of action on short-lived climate forcers and long-lived greenhouse gases which improves the chances of keeping below the 2 degree target throughout the 21st Century.
The findings, released today in Bonn, Germany during a meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have been compiled by an international team of more than 50 researchers chaired by Drew Shindell of the National Aeronautics and Multiple Benefits Include Improved Air Quality and Human Health, Higher Crop Yields, Reduced Rate of Climate Change in the Near-Term and a Chance to Slow Serious Melting of the Arctic

New UNEP-WMO Assessment Complements Urgent Action Needed to Cut CO2 Emissions Under UN Climate Treaty

Bonn, 14 June 2011 - Fast action on pollutants such as black carbon, ground level ozone and methane may help limit near term global temperature rise and significantly increase the chances of keeping temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, and perhaps even 1.5 degrees C, a new assessment says.
Protecting the near-term climate is central to significantly cutting the risk of "amplified global climate change" linked with rapid and extensive loss of Arctic ice on both the land and at sea.
Fast action might also reduce losses of mountain glaciers linked in part with black carbon deposits while reducing projected warming in the Arctic over the coming decades by two thirds.
The scientists behind the assessment, coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), also point to numerous public health and food security opportunities above and beyond those linked with tackling climate change.
Big cuts in emissions of black carbon will improve respiratory health; reduce hospital admissions and days lost at work due to sickness, says the assessment whose Secretariat is provided by the Stockholm Environment Institute. Indeed close to 2.5 million premature deaths from outdoor air pollution could on average be avoided annually world-wide by 2030 with many of those lives saved being in Asia, it is estimated.
Big cuts in ground level ozone could also contribute to reduced crop damage equal to between one to four per cent of the annual global maize, rice, soybean and wheat production.
Cutting these so-called 'short-lived climate forcers' can have immediate climate, health and agricultural benefits, the report concludes. This is because, unlike carbon dioxide (CO2) which can remain in the atmosphere for centuries black carbon for example only persists for days or weeks.
The researchers however also underline the fact that while fast action on black carbon and ground level ozone could play a key role in limiting near-term climate, immediate and sustained action to cut back CO2 is crucial if temperature rises are to be limited over the long-term.
It is the combination of action on short-lived climate forcers and long-lived greenhouse gases which improves the chances of keeping below the 2 degree target throughout the 21st Century.
The findings, released today in Bonn, Germany during a meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have been compiled by an international team of more than 50 researchers chaired by Drew Shindell of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "There are now clear, powerful, abundant and compelling reasons to reduce levels of pollutants such as black carbon and tropospheric ozone along with methane: their growing contribution to climate change being just one of them".
"This assessment underlines how the science of short lived climate forcers has evolved to a level of maturity that now requires and requests a robust policy response by nations. The experts spotlight how a small number of emission reduction measures- targeting for example recovery of methane in the coal, oil and gas sectors through to the provision of cleaner burning cook stoves; particle traps for diesel vehicles and the banning of open burning of agricultural wastes- offer dramatic public health, agricultural, economic and environmental benefits," he added.
The UNEP/WMO Integrated Assessment of Black Carbon and Tropospheric Ozone suggests that action could be catalyzed through not only the UN climate convention process but also via, for example, strengthening existing national and regional air quality agreements.
Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the WMO, said: "Most attention is focused on reducing the main greenhouse gas, CO2 , to combat climate change. However recent years it has become clear that a range of other pollutants such as black carbon and tropospheric ozone are aggravating the challenge".
"This report underlines the need for a stronger observational basis and research effort to increase scientific understanding of the role of these other pollutants in the changing climate system. WMO's Global Atmosphere Watch Programme is addressing these challenges as a priority," he added.
Drew Shindell of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies said: "This report has brought clarity to the complexity of the heating and cooling effects of a range of pollutants and uses the science to show that there are clear and concrete measures that can be undertaken to help protect the global climate in the short to medium term".
"Perhaps the most intriguing link is between emissions of methane and the formation of tropospheric ozone. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas in its own right, but it has emerged that it is also triggering a great deal more global warming by contributing to the formation of significant levels of ground level ozone?indeed more than was previously supposed. The win-win here for limiting climate change and improving air quality is self-evident and the ways to achieve it have become far clearer as a result of this assessment," he added.
Today the Government of Sweden announced support for a comprehensive and forward-looking policy assessment to assist governments on the next steps towards fast action on short lived climate forcers. This is line with Sweden's strategy on SLCFs and its policy to integrate climate change and air pollution policies.
The work, to be coordinated by UNEP, is expected to be ready in advance of the next Climate Convention meeting scheduled later in the year in Durban, South Africa.
The Pollutants Assessed
Black carbon is a major component of soot and is formed from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, wood and biomass. Key sources include emissions from cars and trucks; cookstoves; forest fires and some industrial facilities.
It affects the climate by intercepting and absorbing sunlight and darkens snow and ice when deposited, while also influencing cloud formation. It is also a health hazard.
Tropospheric ozone is a major component of urban smog, is a powerful greenhouse gas and air pollutant harmful to human health and ecosystems.
The threefold increase in concentrations in the northern hemisphere in the past 100 years has made it the third most important global greenhouse gas.
Tropospheric ozone is formed from other gases including methane?itself a potent greenhouse gas emitted from sources such as waste tips, livestock and the oil and gas industry.
How the Study was Carried Out
Both black carbon and the gases that form tropospheric or ground level ozone are typically co-emitted with other gases and particles, some of which cause warming and others that cause cooling.
A relatively small selection of policy measures were chosen from around 2,000 separate measures. The impact of measures likely to reduce global warming, which have a large potential for emission reductions and provide air quality and other benefits were modeled out to 2070.
Measures for Significantly Reducing Black Carbon and Ground Level Ozone
Nine actions are pin pointed in the assessment for black carbon, all of which could be undertaken today including:-
*Diesel particle filters for vehicles as part of combined standards on vehicle emissions and fuels
*Replacing wood burning stoves in developed countries with pellet stoves and boilers using fuel from recycled wood and sawdust
*Clean-burning biomass stoves for cooking and heating in developing countries
*Banning open burning of agricultural wastes
*Replacing traditional brick kilns with vertical shaft and Hoffman kilns
Seven actions are pinpointed for addressing ground level ozone which hinge on addressing methane emissions including:-
*Encouraging composting and other measures to curb organic wastes going to landfill
*Upgrading water treatment works to include gas recovery
*Measures to cut methane emissions from the coal, oil and gas industries, including Cutting leaks from long distance gas pipelines Promoting anaerobic digestion of manure from cattle and pigs
*Intermittent aeration of continuously flooded paddy fields
Notes to Editors
Key Findings from the Integrated Assessment of Black Carbon and Tropospheric Ozone Assessment in Detail
Without measures to curb climate change emissions, temperatures are projected to rise on average by a further 1.3 degrees C by mid-century "bringing the total warming from pre-industrial levels to about 2.2 degrees C.
Arctic
"Near term warming may occur in sensitive regions and could cause essentially irreversible changes such as loss of Arctic land-ice, release of methane and CO2 from Arctic permafrost and species loss,' says the assessment.
"Reducing the near-term rate of warming hence decreases the risk of irreversible transitions that could influence the global climate system for centuries," it adds.
*Fully implementing the measures outlined in the assessment in respect to black carbon, tropospheric ozone and methane could roughly halve (around 0.5 degrees C) the projected global temperature rise between now and the 2030s
*Such measures could reduce warming in the Arctic by around 0.7 degrees C in 2040, or roughly two-thirds of the estimated warming
Glaciers
Cutting black carbon levels in high mountain regions such as the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau could slow the melting rates of glaciers-in part because soot deposits increase the absorption of sunlight- and reduce the risk of the formation of glacial lakes and associated catastrophic outburst floods.
In the high valleys of the Himalayas, for example, black carbon levels can now be as high as in a mid-sized city
Impacts on the Asian Monsoon and Africa rainfall
Increasing concentrations of particles like black carbon may also affect the timing and patterns of the Asian monsoon with important implications for "human well-being because of changes in water supply and agricultural productivity, drought and flooding," says the assessment.
Implementation of black carbon measures could also lead to a considerable reduction in the disruption of traditional rainfall patterns in Africa
Health Benefits
Ground-level ozone and fine particles, including black carbon, are linked with premature deaths, primarily heart disease and lung cancer alongside other illnesses such as bronchitis and low birth weight
Implementing the recommended measures would benefit public health especially in Asia and also in Africa.
Crop Benefits
Both ground-level ozone and black carbon can affect the health, growth and productivity of crops, trees and other plants.
Implementing the measures to reduce methane and thus ground-level ozone would assist in avoiding annual yield losses of about 25 million tonnes of four staple crops
Significantly curbing black carbon emissions would account for a further 25 million tonnes of avoided crop losses annually
The summary for decision makers and full UNEP/WMO Integrated Assessment of Black Carbon and Tropospheric Ozone report can be found at : http://www.unep.org/dewa/Portals/67/pdf/BlackCarbon_SDM.pdf

The UN Climate Change Conference June 2011 http://unfccc.int/2860.php
UNEP's work on climate change http://www.unep.org/climatechange/
WMO, the U.N. system's authoritative voice on weather, water and climate, is at www.wmo.int
For More Information Please Contact:
Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson/Head of Media, on Tel: +254 733 632755, e-mail: 這個 E-mail 地址已經被防止灌水惡意程式保護，您需要啟用 Java Script 才能觀看
Clare Nullis, WMO Press Officer, on Tel: + 41-22-7308478, email: 這個 E-mail 地址已經被防止灌水惡意程式保護，您需要啟用 Java Script 才能觀看

The Horn of Africa is in the middle of its worst drought in more than 60 years following two seasons with no rains that have led to crop failures, widespread loss of livestock, and rising food prices in parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, Somalia and Uganda. The situation is now dire with over 11 million people requiring life-saving assistance throughout the region.

As the humanitarian community works to save lives in the areas affected, the need for sustainable solutions to prevent a reoccurance of this situation in the medium and long-term is becoming increasingly apparent.

"The first and most pressing challenge is to provide food, water and other essentials to the people affected," said Nick Nuttall, spokesperson for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). "But addressing some of the root causes must also be part of the eventual solution," he added.

Myriad factors have contributed to this crisis, with climate change challenges being among them. The region is clearly experiencing at first hand the human consequences of climate change and understanding the link between climate change and development is particularly crucial in Africa, where agriculture and other climate-sensitive sectors are the mainstay of local economies.

This is not the first time that drought has ravished the region. However, prior to the 1970s, extreme climate conditions, such as El Nino, occurred every 10-20 years, which enabled local communities to find coping measures to deal with the impact. But climate change is now eroding these coping measures by causing climatic extremes with greater frequency and intensity. Since 2001, consecutive dry spells in some areas of Africa have led to serious food shortages in many countries.

Investing in the restoration and maintenance of the Earth's ecosystems - from forests and mangroves to wetlands and river basins - can have a key role in countering climate change as well as climate-proofing vulnerable economies. According to a joint study in 2006 by UNEP and the World Agroforestry Centre on climate change and the impacts and adaptation strategies on agriculture in southern Africa, a number of adaptation measures were cited to tackle the extreme weather events like droughts and floods that come with climate change. Rainwater harvesting, improved crop varieties and climate forecasts as well as forestation were just some cost-effective measures.

The availability of drinking water is of crucial importance in these vulnerable communities. UNEP has been at the forefront of supporting the restoration of Kenya's Mau forest, which is one of Sub-Saharan Africa's largest closed canopy forest and the source of the Yala and Nyando rivers which feed Lake Victoria, provide drinking water and support 5,000 hectares of rice production important for local food security. Decades of deforestation of this single most important water catchment in the Rift Valley and western Kenya have had devastating effects on the country, including severe droughts and floods which in turn have led to loss of human lives and livelihoods, crops and livestock. Major steps have now been taken to rehabilitate the Mau and in February a multi-million Euro project to assist in the restoration of the complex was announced by the European Union, UNEP and the Government of Kenya.

In Ethiopia, UNEP is partnering with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to help introduce new policies that will assist pastoralists in managing climate change risks and shocks in six districts. The CC DARE programme, jointly implemented by UNEP and UNDP, is providing timely-targeted support to nine nationally driven projects, with most of them linked to the agricultural sector and thereby addressing food security, in an effort to speed up the integration of climate risk consideration into policy and national planning to curb vulnerability to climate impacts.

In the Horn of Africa, UNEP has collaborated with UNICEF in water resource management that includes assessments of groundwater resources and formation of water councils to help improved drought resilience and water security. Sharing the lessons learned and gained from such projects will no doubt find an audience among the many people currently impacted by the drought.

"These illustrative projects underline that some communities are trying to build resilience and reduce vulnerability in the face of accelerating environmental change including climate change," said Mr. Nuttall.

"Scaling these up and accelerating their implementation more widely could prove to be among the keys to a more sustainable and stable future for millions of people in the region," he added.

Electric car drivers will get a charge out of a block-long stretch of a downtown Portland street that's been dubbed "Electric Avenue," and it may also help the automotive industry and others make important decisions as the use of electric cars evolves.

Seven electric charging stations from six different manufacturers have been installed at Portland State University as part of a two-year study that will examine which chargers get the most use, who's plugging in, and what they do while their car drinks up a charge.

The charging stations were unveiled on Tuesday in a ceremony that, naturally, featured the 1980s Eddy Grant song "Electric Avenue."

Drivers who rock down to Electric Avenue can charge up for free, as long as they pay standard street parking rates at the meter.

With electric vehicles just beginning to prowl American streets, researchers and industry officials hope the Portland project will fill in important blanks about how those vehicles are being used now and will be used in the future.

An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal written by the American Council for Capital Formation’s Margo Thorning makes a good case for “pulling the plug” on subsidies for electric vehicles. Subsidies for alternative energy vehicles have been popular with both Democrat and Republican administrations, but the Obama administration has been a particularly enthusiastic supporter of industrial planning.

Thorning begins by pointing out that the idea of an electric-powered is hardly new:

Electric vehicles have been with us for almost 180 years. The first, an electric carriage created by an inventor named Robert Anderson, made its appearance in Scotland in 1832. By 1907 the American company Cutler-Hammer was advertising electric vehicles and the first electric charging station. Since that time Americans have seen tremendous innovations is everything from air travel to microwaves, yet there has been little progress converting consumers from gasoline-powered cars to vehicles powered by rechargeable batteries.

Today’s entrants aren’t exactly sending consumers rushing to the electric car showroom. There are a couple of obvious reasons why:

A battery for a small vehicle like the Nissan Leaf can cost about $20,000 and still only put out a range of 80 miles on a good day (range is affected by hot and cold weather) before requiring a recharge that takes eight to 10 hours. Even then, those batteries may only last six to eight years, leaving consumers with a vehicle that has little resale value.

Home installation of a recharging unit costs between $900 and $2,100. And don't forget workplace and retail recharging stations, which will be necessary.

The bottom line: plug-in electric vehicles simply do not make practical or economic sense.

Undeterred, the government is resorting to taxpayer-financed bribes to create a market that otherwise would not exist:

Despite these significant flaws, the government is determined to jump-start sales for plug-ins by putting taxpayers on the hook. The $7,500 federal tax credit per PEV is nothing more than a federal subsidy that will add to the deficit. There are also federal tax credits for installing charging stations in homes and businesses and for building battery factories and upgrading the electric grid. The administration's goal—one million PEVs on the road by 2015— could cost taxpayers $7.5 billion. Outlays for recharging infrastructure will add billions more.

A Cato essay on energy subsidies demonstrates that the federal government has a poor record when it comes to industrial planning:

Policymakers often make grandiose promises, such as proposing to make America “energy independent” or to convert the nation to a “green economy.” Those visions don’t make any sense, but even if they did history shows that the Department of Energy would be incapable of putting them into place with any degree of competence. Federal energy schemes are often poorly managed and generate huge cost overruns, or they aim at objectives that make little economic sense, as the following case studies illustrate.

The Obama administration apparently believes that it possesses the unique foresight to optimally plan the economy. However, history is replete with examples of overly-ambitious government planners playing Nostradamus with less than desirable results. Before anymore taxpayer money is wasted, the plug should be pulled on electric vehicle subsidies as well as the entire Department of Energy.

Cancún (Mexico), 7 December 2010 - After covering more than 25,000 kilometres across four continents, participants in the Zero Emissions Race received a warm welcome in Cancún, Mexico at the UN Climate Change Conference, having powered their way from Geneva in less than 80 days using renewable energy.

UN Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner greeted environmentalist and adventurer Louis Palmer, the organizer of the marathon journey, saying this proved that green technologies to promote and catalyse low carbon transport, are available and reliable.

After their pit stop in Cancun, the teams from Australia, Germany and Switzerland will take to the road once more, with the electric vehicles aiming to arrive at the finishing line in Geneva by 22 January 2011.

"We have been following the Zero Emissions Race with interest and excitement since its inception. I am delighted to see that the same innovation and spirit which inspired the dreams of adventurers over 130 years ago, are still very much evidence as we cross another threshold, this time towards a resource-efficient Green Economy frontier,"said Mr Steiner.

The transport sector is responsible for approximately one quarter of all energy-related CO2 emissions, a figure set to rise to one third by 2050. Within that sector, it is estimated that in 40 years, the number of vehicles in the world will have tripled, with over 80 per cent of that growth occurring in developing countries.

Mr. Steiner added: "There is an urgent need to find a way to reconcile legitimate aspirations for mobility and an ambitious reduction in CO2 from cars. The technology underpinning electric cars, amongst others, needs to be harnessed, and markets and industries incentivized to support production and use of this kind of clean energy."

"With an unprecedented growth in the use of vehicles over the next few decades, governments in both developed and developing countries need to act to stem the expected exponential rise in emissions and find alternative transport methods," he said.

Reducing CO2 emissions from transport not only helps to combat climate change, but reduces the health hazards associated with vehicle emissions. The majority of developing and transitional countries used leaded gasoline in 2002. However, today only 6 countries are still using small amounts of leaded gasoline - the harmful effects of which are well documented in both children and adults.

UNEP's Clean Vehicles Partnership, with its Clearing-House based in Nairobi has on-going or planned activities in all the remaining six countries moving towards complete elimination - Myanmar, North Korea, Yemen, Algeria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

UNEP is also working with road safety, environmental protection and sustainable mobility campaigners, the FIA Foundation, the International Energy Agency and the International Transport Forum, to form the Global Fuel Economy Initiative - the first global project to offer developing countries access to practical technology and policy expertise to lower greenhouse gas emissions from road transport.

This case study is showcased in UNEP's "30 Ways in 30 Days" initiative - a compilation of success stories showing that across the world, in myriad ways, from community-based programmes to entrepreneurial endeavors, solutions are available to help confront the challenges of climate change and to help countries, communities and businesses move towards low-emission, climate-resilient growth.

Note to Editors

UNEP's 30 Ways in 30 Days Initiative is at http://www.unep.org/unite/30ways/

For more information please contact:

Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson/Head of Media, on Tel: +254 733 632755, +41 79 596 5737, E-mail: 這個 E-mail 地址已經被防止灌水惡意程式保護，您需要啟用 Java Script 才能觀看

Or Joanna Benn, UNEP Division of Communications and Public Information, on Tel: +254 719 867 903 or +44 7896 150396, E-mail: 這個 E-mail 地址已經被防止灌水惡意程式保護，您需要啟用 Java Script 才能觀看