Co-benefits of black carbon mitigation for climate and air quality

Mathijs J. H. M. Harmsen (), Pim Dorst, Detlef P. Vuuren, Maarten Berg, Rita Dingenen and Zbigniew Klimont
Additional contact information
Mathijs J. H. M. Harmsen: PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
Pim Dorst: PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
Detlef P. Vuuren: PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
Maarten Berg: PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
Rita Dingenen: Joint Research Centre (JRC)
Zbigniew Klimont: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

Climatic Change, 2020, vol. 163, issue 3, No 21, 1519-1538

Abstract: Abstract Mitigation of black carbon (BC) aerosol emissions can potentially contribute to both reducing air pollution and climate change, although mixed results have been reported regarding the latter. A detailed quantification of the synergy between global air quality and climate policy is still lacking. This study contributes with an integrated assessment model-based scenario analysis of BC-focused mitigation strategies aimed at maximizing air quality and climate benefits. The impacts of these policy strategies have been examined under different socio-economic conditions, climate ambitions, and BC mitigation strategies. The study finds that measures targeting BC emissions (including reduction of co-emitted organic carbon, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxides) result in significant decline in premature mortality due to ambient air pollution, in the order of 4 to 12 million avoided deaths between 2015 and 2030. Under certain circumstances, BC mitigation can also reduce climate change, i.e., mainly by lowering BC emissions in the residential sector and in high BC emission scenarios. Still, the effect of BC mitigation on global mean temperature is found to be modest at best (with a maximum short-term GMT decrease of 0.02 °C in 2030) and could even lead to warming (with a maximum increase of 0.05 °C in case of a health-focused strategy, where all aerosols are strongly reduced). At the same time, strong climate policy would improve air quality (the opposite relation) through reduced fossil fuel use, leading to an estimated 2 to 5 million avoided deaths in the period up to2030. By combining both air quality and climate goals, net health benefits can be maximized.

Keywords: Black carbon; Climate policy; Air quality; Short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-020-02800-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:climat:v:163:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s10584-020-02800-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10584

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-020-02800-8

Access Statistics for this article

Climatic Change is currently edited by M. Oppenheimer and G. Yohe

More articles in Climatic Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().