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Pitch

Start with the poorest people first: reduce black carbon through efficient cookstoves and slow local/global climate change in a month or so.


Description

Summary

According to the UNEP's "Integrated Assessment of Black carbon and Tropospheric Ozone and Near Term Climate Protection and Clean Air Benefits"http://www.unep.org/dewa/Portals/67/pdf/BlackCarbon_SDM.pdfthree short lived climate forcers – black carbon, tropospheric ozone and methane [an ozone precursor] – will provide significant benefits through improved air quality and a slowing of near-term climate change.  Black carbon and tropospheric ozone are resident in the atmosphere for a few days to three weeks (3-8 days for carbon, up to 4-18 days for ozone).  "Full implementation" of all the identified measures could reduce future global warming by 0.5˚C . If implemented by 2030, this tactic might halve the potential increase in global temperature projected for 2050. "The rate of regional temperature increase would also be reduced" wherever they are put into practice and "could avoid 2.4 million premature deaths and the loss of 52 million tonnes , 1–4 per cent, of the global production of maize, rice, soybean and wheat each year."  Benefits will be felt immediately "in or close to the regions" where black carbon, methane, and tropospheric ozone are reduced.  The potential for emissions reductions, climate, health, and economic benefits are highest in Asia but gains can also be realized in Africa, Latin America. A few emission reduction measures "targeting black carbon and ozone precursors could immediately begin to protect climate, public health, water and food security, and ecosystems. Measures include the recovery of methane from coal, oil and gas extraction and transport, methane capture in waste management, use of clean-burning stoves for residential cooking, diesel particulate filters for vehicles and the banning of field burning of agricultural waste."  All these benefits can be obtained with existing technology but require significant strategic investment and institutional arrangements to make them widespread, part of general and every day use.


Key actor

Grassroots neighborhood organizations


What actions do you propose?

recovery of methane from coal, oil and gas extraction and transport, methane capture in waste management

Methane Management in all its forms is essential as methane is a precursor to troposheric ozone, a short term climate forcer, and a significant greenhouse gas on its own.  We need to think about how we can stop methane from getting into the atmosphere and how to take it out once it is up there.

diesel particulate filters for vehicles  

clean-burning stoves for residential cooking

elimination of field burning of agricultural waste.  

This is a primary step in the direction of zero emissions production at all scales in a zero emissions society.

"If you are not for zero waste, how much waste are you for?"

Zero Emissions Resources

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/11/1108649/-Zero-Emissions-Resources


Who will take these actions?


Where will these actions be taken?

It would be best if universal but can be phased in and targeted at different emission streams and uses as determined by local conditions.  All solutions need local infrastructural support.  For example, cleaner cookstoves are certainly locally installed and  should be locally repairable at least partly locally made, ideally with the cooperation and design expertise of the user population.   Maasai Stoves and Solar is an example of what I mean: http://www.maasaistovessolar.org/index.html

 

 


How much will emissions be reduced or sequestered vs. business as usual levels?

"Full implementation" of all the identified measures could reduce future global warming by 0.5˚C . If implemented by 2030, this tactic might halve the potential increase in global temperature projected for 2050. "The rate of regional temperature increase would also be reduced" wherever they are put into practice and "could avoid 2.4 million premature deaths and the loss of 52 million tonnes , 1–4 per cent, of the global production of maize, rice, soybean and wheat each year." 


What are other key benefits?

 Benefits will be felt immediately "in or close to the regions" where black carbon, methane, and tropospheric ozone are reduced.  The potential for emissions reductions, climate, health, and economic benefits are highest in Asia but gains can also be realized in Africa, Latin America. A few emission reduction measures "targeting black carbon and ozone precursors could immediately begin to protect climate, public health, water and food security, and ecosystems. 


What are the proposal’s costs?

These actions should more than pay for themselves and provide living wage jobs for the people who do them.  


Time line


Related proposals


References

UNEP's "Integrated Assessment of Black carbon and Tropospheric Ozone and Near Term Climate Protection and Clean Air Benefits"http://www.unep.org/dewa/Portals/67/pdf/BlackCarbon_SDM.pdf