Ancillary Benefits for Climate Change Mitigation and Air Pollution Control in the World's Motor Vehicle Fleets

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

The global motor vehicle population has grown very rapidly in the past half century and is expected to continue to grow rapidly for the next several decades, especially in developing countries. As a result, vehicles are a major source of urban air pollution in many cities and are the fastest-growing source of greenhouse emissions. Strategies exist to reduce both problems, but many countries emphasize one over the other rather than pursuing strategies that reduce both concerns. Using diesel as an example, this article illustrates that it is now possible not only to reduce carbon dioxide with the increased use of diesel vehicles but also to improve urban air pollution. Doing so requires both stringent emissions regulations and clean fuels. Several principles contained in the Bellagio Memorandum are highlighted as guides for policy makers.

Related collections

Most cited references 4

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Climate change and trace gases.

James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha … (2007)

Palaeoclimate data show that the Earth's climate is remarkably sensitive to global forcings. Positive feedbacks predominate. This allows the entire planet to be whipsawed between climate states. One feedback, the 'albedo flip' property of ice/water, provides a powerful trigger mechanism. A climate forcing that 'flips' the albedo of a sufficient portion of an ice sheet can spark a cataclysm. Inertia of ice sheet and ocean provides only moderate delay to ice sheet disintegration and a burst of added global warming. Recent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions place the Earth perilously close to dramatic climate change that could run out of our control, with great dangers for humans and other creatures. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the largest human-made climate forcing, but other trace constituents are also important. Only intense simultaneous efforts to slow CO2 emissions and reduce non-CO2 forcings can keep climate within or near the range of the past million years. The most important of the non-CO2 forcings is methane (CH4), as it causes the second largest human-made GHG climate forcing and is the principal cause of increased tropospheric ozone (O3), which is the third largest GHG forcing. Nitrous oxide (N2O) should also be a focus of climate mitigation efforts. Black carbon ('black soot') has a high global warming potential (approx. 2000, 500 and 200 for 20, 100 and 500 years, respectively) and deserves greater attention. Some forcings are especially effective at high latitudes, so concerted efforts to reduce their emissions could preserve Arctic ice, while also having major benefits for human health, agricultural productivity and the global environment.