Cutting Non-CO2 Pollutants Can Delay Abrupt Climate Change, Solve 'Fast Half' of Climate Problem

Cutting Non-CO2 Pollutants Can Delay Abrupt Climate Change, Solve 'Fast Half'
of Climate Problem

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Reducing non-CO2 climate change
agents such as black carbon soot, tropospheric ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons
(HFCs), as well as expanding bio-sequestration through biochar production, can
forestall fast approaching abrupt climate changes, according to Nobel Laureate
Dr. Mario Molina and co-authors in a paper published today in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20091012/DC91145-e)

The paper's authors said that pursuing these solutions could change the
character of the United Nations climate change conference taking place this
December in Copenhagen.

"Cutting HFCs, black carbon, tropospheric ozone, and methane can buy us about
40 years before we approach the dangerous threshold of 2 degrees Celsius
warming," said co-author Professor Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a Distinguished
Professor of Climate and Atmospheric Sciences at Scripps Institution of
Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

"By targeting these short-term climate forcers, we can make a down payment on
climate and provide momentum going into the December negotiations in
Copenhagen," said co-author Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for
Governance & Sustainable Development. "The Obama Administration and other key
governments need to take up the fast-action climate agenda before it is too
late."

HFCs are powerful greenhouse gases originally developed as substitutes for
ozone-depleting chemicals. They are poised to become a larger and larger part
of the climate problem over the next few decades. HFCs are used primarily as
refrigerants and in making insulating foam, and emissions are expected to grow
dramatically due to increased demand for air conditioning in developing
countries. By 2050, HFC emissions could equal up to 19 percent of global CO2
emissions under business-as-usual scenarios. The good news, the paper points
out, is that a binding legal agreement exists that can cut HFCs now -- the
Montreal Protocol ozone treaty -- and that many alternatives to HFCs have
already been developed and are on the shelf waiting for the right regulatory
incentive from the Montreal Protocol to be deployed.

"The Montreal Protocol has already delayed climate change by seven to 12
years, and put the ozone layer on the path to recovery later this century,"
said Dr. Mario Molina, recipient of the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his
path-breaking work in 1974 that sounded the alarm on ozone-depleting CFCs.
"The Montreal Protocol is critical for avoiding abrupt climate change. We
have to take advantage of the proven ability of this legally binding treaty to
quickly phase down HFCs."

The small island nations of Micronesia and Mauritius submitted a joint
proposal in April to phase down production and consumption of HFCs under the
Montreal Protocol. North American leaders followed suit with their own joint
proposal, which builds on the islands' submission. The Montreal Protocol is an
essential strategy for the island nations to achieve fast mitigation to slow
sea-level rise that is already starting to destroy their countries. "We must
consider all viable strategies that will help protect vulnerable island
nations, in particular, those strategies that have a track record of success,
such as the Montreal Protocol," said Ambassador Masao Nakayama, Permanent
Representative of the Federated States of Micronesia to the United Nations.
Although the Kyoto Protocol currently addresses emissions of HFCs, it does not
address production and consumption.

A neglected fast-action strategy presented in the paper is reducing black
carbon soot, an aerosol produced largely from the incomplete combustion of
diesel fuels and biofuels, and from biomass burning. It is now considered to
be the second or third largest contributor to climate change. Black carbon is
responsible for almost 50 percent of the 1.9 degrees Celsius increase in
warming of the Arctic since 1890 as well as significant melting of the
Himalaya-Tibetan glaciers that feed the major rivers of Asia, providing fresh
water to billions of people.

Researchers consider black carbon an ideal target for achieving quick
mitigation because it only remains in the atmosphere a few days to a few weeks
and can be reduced by expanding the use of diesel particulate filters for
vehicles and clean-burning or solar cookstoves to replace those burning dung
and wood. With indoor air pollution killing 1.6 million people a year, global
action to cut soot emissions would reap major benefits for both public health
and climate.

"If we reduce black carbon emissions worldwide by 50 percent by fully
deploying all available emissions-control technologies, we could delay the
warming effects of CO2 by one to two decades and at the same time greatly
improve the health of those living in heavily polluted regions," said Dr.
Ramanathan.

Like black carbon, ground level or tropospheric ozone doubles as a major
climate forcer and health hazard. It also lowers crop yields. A recent study
reported that ozone's damage to crop yields in 2000 resulted in an economic
loss of up to $26 billion annually. It is formed by "ozone precursor" gases
such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, methane, and other hydrocarbons,
many of which can be reduced by improving the efficiency of industrial
combustion processes. Reducing tropospheric ozone by 50 percent could buy
another decade's worth of time for countries to start making substantial cuts
in CO2.

Biochar is one of the few promising "carbon-negative" strategies that can
drawdown existing concentrations of CO2. The fine-grained charcoal product is
a stable form of carbon that can be plowed into soil where it remains for
hundreds to thousands of years, also serving as a natural fertilizer. Biochar
comes from cooking biomass waste at low temperatures with minimal oxygen -- a
process called pyrolisis. "The other fast-action strategies can quickly
mitigate emissions, but to back away from the cliff of abrupt climate change,
we need biochar," said Zaelke.

Although most of the world is focused on CO2 in the months leading up to
Copenhagen, the authors of the paper hope that policymakers will recognize the
advantages of implementing these fast-action strategies to complement
reductions in CO2. "These fast-action strategies will support the long-term
CO2 solution by stopping near-term climate change with non-CO2 solutions,"
said Dr. Stephen Andersen. "This will bring momentum to those negotiating the
international agreement and the U.S. legislation."

The paper is part of a "Tipping elements in Earth systems" special feature to
be published in PNAS later this year.

"Cutting CO2 emissions is essential, but it won't produce cooling fast enough
to avoid passing tipping points for abrupt climate change," said Zaelke. "With
the world already committed to more than 2 degrees Celsius of warming, we need
these fast-action strategies to put the brakes on climate change, and in the
case of biochar, put us in reverse by reducing existing atmospheric
concentrations of CO2."

"We intend our paper as a call to action," said co-author K. Madhava Sarma of
the Montreal Protocol's Technology and Economic Assessment Panel.

Title: Reducing abrupt climate change risk using the Montreal Protocol and
other regulatory actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions

Authors: Mario Molina, Durwood Zaelke, K. Madhava Sarma, Stephen O. Andersen,
Veerabhadran Ramanathan and Donald Kaniaru

Available online: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/recent

For further information on the Montreal Protocol and its contribution to
climate protection:

IGSD background note on Montreal protocol:
http://www.igsd.org/documents/OzoneDayPR15Sept1055am.pdf

IGSD press release on "North American leaders submit joint proposal to phase
down HFCs under Montreal Protocol":
http://www.igsd.org/documents/PR_NAHFCproposal1245pm.pdf

Contact: Alex Viets, IGSD: +1.213.321.0911 or +1.202.498.2457, aviets@igsd.org

SOURCE Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development

Alex Viets of IGSD, +1-213-321-0911, +1-202-498-2457, aviets@igsd.org