As much as 40% of current net warming is attributable to black carbon, point out Dr. W. David Montgomery, Robert E. Baron and Dr. Sugandha D. Tuladhar.
Moreover, whereas CO2 has a life of up to about 40 years, black carbon remains in the atmosphere for as little as several weeks, which means that reducing emissions of black carbon can have an immediate near term impact on atmospheric warming. Since black carbon is considered responsible for about 30% of the arctic melting, black carbon emission reductions can also rapidly reduce the rate at which arctic ice is melting.
Black carbon is essentially the soot produced through diesel emissions, and – in developing countries – people burning organic matter to cook food and stay warm. It can be eliminated with cleaner fuels and new cooking technologies. Sooty pollution from indoor fires claims several million lives each year so reducing black carbon would be a life-saver.
Over the past century, technological advances have significantly mitigated black carbon emissions in industrial countries. Developing countries, on the other hand, often have been unable to afford the same technological advances, and, in turn, as their populations have grown, so have black carbon emissions.
Black carbon can be controlled in developing countries through the implementation of cleaner fuels, new cooking technologies, and changing crop management practices.
The authors also present potential ways to implement these policies. They estimate that spending $359 million could realistically slash 19% of black carbon emissions. This would have a significant cooling impact on the planet, and would save 200,000 lives from pollution. The net annual benefits would run into several billion dollars.
Dr. Milind Kandlikar, Conor C. O. Reynolds and Andrew P. Grieshop find that black carbon reductions – especially those related to contained combustion – provide a win-win opportunity with both health and climate benefits. They also find that there is also a compelling case for their inclusion in a climate emission reductions regime because of the potential to “buy” a delay in warming, as part of a climate mitigation strategy. They note that it is important, however, to recognize that black carbon reductions are not a substitute for reductions in emissions of CO2, but that the two approaches must be applied together. They assess benefit-cost ratios for five different options to reduce black carbon emissions, and find that indoor combustion sources of black carbon such as clean-burning household stoves using biomass or gaseous fossil fuels provide the greatest benefit per unit cost.
Analysis Papers, written by experts in this field, provide a comprehensive exploration of the costs and benefits of one solution to climate change.
Perspective Papers provide a critique of the assumptions and calculations used in the Analysis Paper, and provide another expert opinion on this solution to climate change.
Download PDFDr. David Montgomery
Author of An Analysis of Black Carbon Mitigation as a Response to Climate Change. Dr. David Montgomery is Vice President at Charles River Associates International. He is an internationally recognized expert on economic issues associated with climate change policy, and his work on these topics has been published frequently in peer-reviewed journals. He was a principal lead author of the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Working Group III, and he has authored a number of peer-reviewed publications on climate policy over the past 20 years.
Robert E Baron
Co-author of An Analysis of Black Carbon Mitigation as a Response to Climate Change. Robert E. Baron is a Senior Consultant at Charles River Associates. He has 30 years of experience in the energy industry, related to natural gas, petroleum, and electric utilities. Previously he was vice president at ICF Consulting, a principal at DRI/McGraw-Hill, a manager at British Petroleum and a research scientist at the MIT Energy Laboratory.
Dr. Suganda D Tuladhar
Co-author of An Analysis of Black Carbon Mitigation as a Response to Climate Change. Dr. Sugandha D. Tuladhar is an Associate Principal at Charles River Associates International. He specializes in computable general equilibrium model development and its application. As a general equilibrium modeler with extensive econometric and programming skills, Dr. Tuladhar’s work focuses on the global impact of environmental and climate policy changes.
Dr. Milind Kandlikar
Author of A Perspective Paper on Black Carbon Mitigation as a Response to Climate Change. Dr. Milind Kandlikar is an Associate Professor at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. His work focuses on the intersection of technology innovation, human development and the global environment. He has published extensively on the science and policy of climate change.