Only in the past few years have we begun to see the integration of black carbon into policy. Reduction of sea ice, within the Arctic, is becoming ever pressing and require the movement of policies from move from local legislations onto the global platform, in order to reduce BC emissions. There is a substantial body of scientific
research explaining why BC policies should be put in place, so why is there a gap
between the science and the implementation of global policies? Within this post
I aim to reflect and discuss some of the thoughts I have had surrounding this
topic of Black Carbon and the related polices in response to a
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| Is this how we are viewing climate change? We know BC is causing warming. So why are we not acting? |
For many reducing Black Carbon for the sake of
the Arctic is not a huge motivator. Health
implications, associated with BC, are more of an encouragement to other global bodies to promote emission cuts. For example if the BC production was halved by 2030 approximately, 2.4
million premature deaths a year could be avoided.
However, the House
of Commons Audit report (addressing the threats to the Arctic) states “Black
carbon is a climate and health problem. If policy makers continue to consider
black carbon as only a health and air quality problem we will fail to optimise
the climate and Arctic benefits from Black carbon”. For policies to be
beneficial, political bodies must first recognise the climatic issues of BC (as well as the health issues) and then incorporate this into the decision making process.
Climate and Air
quality polices.
Furthermore, whist researching both climate change and air
quality policies (which BC would fall under) all I seem to find is a contradiction. An example of this is biomass
burning. The burning of biomass reduces Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere
but causes a greater volume of Black Carbon to be released. This just seem madness to me! Policies
combating climate change and BC need to walk hand in hand (eg. Switching to
renewable energy sources) as
opposed to many of the ‘either-or’ decisions currently in place.
Agree or even disagree with my thoughts? Let me know by
commenting!
Great post, Charlie. I find it difficult to understand why black carbon and other aerosols are ignored so much in policy, is this definitely the case? With such important implications for health AND climate, you'd think they'd be more talked about! However, I think (could be wrong...) that the IPCC AR5 report was the first time aerosols like black carbon etc were incorporated and taken seriously, along with being incorporated into the CMIP5 climate models.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that managing BC for the sake of the Arctic will be hard for the general public to engage in, so maybe the health route is more hopeful.
Hi Katy! Thanks for the Comment. I have just trawled through 4 of the IPCC reports and yes Aerosols have their own chapter, but within this black carbon is not mentioned once. I did find this in the IPCC Adaption report (2014) "Added shipping and economic activity will increase the amount
ReplyDeleteof black carbon and reinforce warming trends in the region" but there is little further mention of the pollutant.
I wasn't stating are no policies of BC as i cover a number of Black Carbon policies currently in place in the Arctic in my previous post (take a look!), I was using these posts to show that more needs to be done to reduce black carbon emissions and call for the same kind of response that GHGs have within policy.
Katy here is the link to firstly the report in which i got the quote from and secondly the IPPC AR5 chapter on aerosols if you are interested!
Deletehttps://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg2/WGIIAR5-Chap28_FINAL.pdf
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter07_FINAL.pdf
It seems strange to me also that biomass burning would be promoted as a climate change mitigator, not only with the BC production, but also due to the loss of the terrestrial CO2 store etc. Do you feel renewables can be established now, especially in poorer, rural areas where biomass is perhaps the only current option?
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