Down with Black Carbon: G8 Nations Target Overlooked Climate Pollutants

The eight richest industrialized nations have agreed to take concrete measures to reduce the emissions of short-lived climate pollutants, including black carbon (soot), methane, ground-level ozone and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The little publicized announcement by the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom, was included in the communiqué following the G8 summit hosted by President Obama at Camp David, MD, on May 18-19. The G8 leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies and to limiting the world’s increase in temperature to less than two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.

Though the focus is usually on the dangers of human-caused carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions accumulating in our atmosphere, black carbon, methane and other short-lived pollutants account for 30 percent of the global warming currently taking place and cause 2 million premature deaths every year, according to the U.S. State Department.

Short-lived pollutants don’t remain in the atmosphere as long as CO2 (at most a couple of weeks for black carbon and up to 15 years for methane and HFCs, versus a century for CO2) but are much more potent greenhouse agents. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) concluded last year that taking relatively simple steps to reduce the emission of short-lived pollutants would delay dangerous climate change by more than three decades, buying time for the implementation of more difficult carbon dioxide reductions.

Many effective measures to reduce soot, methane, and HFC emissions can be implemented quickly at a national level, using technologies that are already available. Existing regulations can be tightened, and investments in clean technologies increased. UNEP has identified five high-priority goals: reducing particulate emissions from diesel engines; upgrading older brick kilns (a significant source of black carbon); further reducing methane emissions from landfills; cutting methane emissions from the oil and gas industry (e.g. fugitive emissions from fracking); and accelerating the adoption of HFC alternatives.

The U.S.-led coalition to reduce short-lived pollutants was launched by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on February 16 , and initially included seven members: Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico, Sweden, the United States, and the United Nations Environment Programme. With the G8 now joining it, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC) should have the wherewithal to make a difference.

Sources :

Camp David Declaration - May 18-19, 2012
Business Green
Forbes
The Telegraph
Wall Street Journal