Curb soot and smog, keep the Arctic cooler: UN report

Improve air quality, you’ll save lives, and keep temperatures cooler in the Arctic.

That’s the message from a new report released today by the United Nations Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization.

The report suggests measures such as mandatory filters on diesel vehicles could reduce warming in the Arctic by around 0.7 C in 2040, preventing about two-thirds of the estimated warming from taking place.

Protecting the climate now will cut the risk of runaway global climate change, the report concludes.

Released at UN climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany, the report lists 16 ways to reduce soot and climate-warming smog emissions.

The actions, which include recycling and waste separation, would slow global warming, curb respiratory diseases, and reduce damage to crops grown in the South, the report says.

These actions could have “substantial benefits in the Arctic.”

“This could reduce warming in the Arctic in the next 30 years by about two-thirds,” say the report’s 50 researchers.

And there would “clearly be much less warming during 2020 to 2060 were the measures implemented earlier rather than late,” they say.

The measures could also avoid 2.4 million premature deaths world-wide by 2030 from respiratory illnesses, heart disease and cancers.

In the Arctic, ships, open dump burns and fumes from anything that runs on diesel fuel are the major producers of soot and smog.

But other major producers within the Arctic include gas and oil burning at natural gas plants and wells or along pipelines.

To curb emissions, the shipping industry could retrofit its vessels with exhaust filters to catch tiny airborne soot particles.

Arctic communities could also look at other ways to generate electricity than diesel-burning generators and turn to incineration instead of open burning to dispose of trash, suggested Andreas Stohl from the Norwegian Institute for Air Research at last month’s Arctic climate change and pollution conference in Copenhagen.

Improving air quality could also improve human health in the Arctic, because soot particles are known to trigger asthma attacks.

Sweden, which took over the chair of the Arctic Council in May, said it plans to produce a policy assessment to help governments take action to cut soot and smog.

The work, to be coordinated by UNEP, is expected to be ready before the next UN Climate Convention meeting scheduled later this year in Durban, South Africa.

At its May meeting in Nuuk, members of the Arctic Council also agreed to get a steering group to look at ways to limit soot (which it calls black carbon) in the Arctic.

You can read the summary for decision makers of the “Integrated Assessment of Black Carbon and Tropospheric Ozone” report here.