Clean Air and Climate Coalition against Soot and other Short Term Air Pollution

The Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short Lived Climate Pollutants is a voluntary Partnership of governments, intergovernmental organizations, representatives of the private sector, the environmental community, and other members of civil society that have joined forces to address the challenge of short lived climate pollutants.

Current members :

Bangladesh
Canada
Colombia
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Ghana
Italy
Japan
Jordan
Mexico
Nigeria
Norway
Sweden
The United Kingdom
The United States of America
The European Commission

Short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) are agents that have relatively short lifetime in the atmosphere – a few days to a few decades – and a warming influence on climate. The main short lived climate pollutants are black carbon, methane and tropospheric ozone, which are the most important contributors to the human enhancement of the global greenhouse effect after CO2. These short-lived climate pollutants are also dangerous air pollutants, with various detrimental impacts on human health, agriculture and ecosystems. Other short-lived climate pollutants include some hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). While HFCs are currently present in small quantity in the atmosphere their contribution to climate forcing is projected to climb to as much as 19% of global CO2 emissions by 2050.

Avoiding millions of premature deaths

Each year, 3.1 million people die prematurely from indoor and outdoor air pollution. Short-lived climate pollutants are largely to blame. Fast actions on short lived climate pollutants, such as the widespread adoption of advanced cookstoves and clean fuels, have the potential to prevent over 2 million of premature deaths each year.

Increasing crop yields

Feeding a growing world population has become one of the major issues of our century and we cannot afford to lose millions of tons of crops each year because of air pollution. Present day global relative yield losses due to tropospheric ozone exposure range between 7-12 percent for wheat, 6-16 percent for soybean, 3-4 percent for rice, and 3-5 percent for maize

At the first meeting of the CCAC High Level Assembly, on 24 April 2012 in Stockholm, an initial tranche of five initiatives was agreed upon for rapid implementation, as follows.

* Reducing Black Carbon Emissions from Heavy Duty Diesel Vehicles and Engines

The Coalition will work to reduce the climate and health impacts of black carbon and particulate matter (PM) emissions in the transport sector. An estimated 19% of global black carbon emissions come from the transportation sector, with an important share coming from diesel vehicles.

The Coalition will work to reduce these emissions through commitments by governments, regional institutions, cities, across the private sector, and other major stakeholders to achieve catalytic, large-scale and replicable reductions of black carbon emissions from heavy duty diesel vehicles and engines within: the freight transportation supply chain by engaging private sector interests; urban areas through the implementation of city action plans; and countries through the adoption of a range of measures for reducing sulphur in fuels and vehicle emissions.

* Mitigating Black Carbon and Other Pollutants From Brick Production

The Coalition will work to address emissions of black carbon and other pollutants from brick production and reduce the harmful climate, air pollution, economic, and social impacts from this sector. Brick kiln production is responsible for important air pollution in many cities of the world.

Under this focal area, the CCAC will catalyse adoption of integrated approaches for cleaner brick production technologies through technical assistance, overviews of high energy efficient technologies, cost-benefit analyses, awareness raising activities, capacity building and implementation of pilot projects.

* Mitigating SLCPs from the Municipal Solid Waste Sector

The Coalition will work to address methane, black carbon, and other air pollutants emissions across the municipal solid waste sector by working with cities and national governments. This initiative will be a catalyzing force to reduce methane and air pollution across the municipal solid waste sector by securing city and country commitments to undertake a variety of best practice policies and strategies for waste management.

Through technical assistance, training, capacity building, and awareness-raising, cities will mitigate emissions of methane, black carbon and other pollutants as they transition to more sustainable waste management options. Municipal solid waste landfills are the third largest source of global methane emissions, while the practice of open garbage burning emits black carbon and other toxic compounds as well as greenhouse gases.

* Promoting HFC Alternative Technology and Standards

The Coalition will work with governments and the private sector to address rapidly growing hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) emissions, which could account for as much as 19% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2050 if left unchecked. The Coalition will bring together a high-level global roundtable to establish private sector and government pledges to promote climate-friendly alternatives and technologies; minimize HFC leaks; and encourage recovery, recycling, reclamation, and destruction of HFCs.

Through this initiative, the Coalition can bring high-level visibility to HFC reduction efforts, and facilitate dialogue with industry leaders who are committed to responsible approaches or who can contribute in areas of technology development, commercialization and deployment.

* Accelerating Methane Reductions from Oil and Natural Gas Production

The Coalition will seek to work with a group of key stakeholders and countries in the oil and natural gas sector to encourage cooperation and support the implementation of new and existing measures to substantially reduce methane emissions from natural gas venting, leakage, and flaring.

The initiative will build on existing programs and work with participating governments, companies, financial institutions, and other stakeholders to more fully capture and utilize vented, leaked, and flared natural gas through cost effective strategies. The oil and gas sector accounts for more than 20% of all anthropogenic emissions of methane globally.

Cross-cutting efforts

The Coalition has also identified cross-cutting efforts to be undertaken in order to accelerate emissions reductions across all short-lived climate pollutants.

* Financing of SLCP mitigation
While multiple means of financing SLCP mitigation already exist they are not currently translating into high-enough levels of financial flows. In order to take advantage of all mitigation opportunities, the Coalition will seek to act as a catalyst of scaled-up SLCP mitigation financing and will work with governments, the private sector, donors, financial institutions, expert groups and investors’ networks to bolster these financial flows.

* Promoting SLCP National Action Plans
Measures to mitigate SLCPs have been assessed at a global and regional level and now need to be incorporated into national policies and actions. The Coalition will develop a program to support National Action Plans for SLCPs, including national inventory development, building on existing air quality, climate change and development agreements, and assessment, prioritization, and demonstration of promising SLCP mitigation measures.

Related Initiatives

Related initiatives list

* The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is a public-private initiative to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and combat climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions.

* The Atmospheric Brown Cloud (ABC) project assesses the impacts of atmospheric brown clouds on human health, hydrology and agriculture under an integrated framework.

* The Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles supports the reduction of the level of sulphur in fuels to 50 parts per million and below worldwide and helps countries adopt vehicle emission standards to fully utilize better fuel quality for lower emissions.

* Project Surya aims to mitigate the regional and global impacts of anthropogenic climate change by immediately and demonstrably reducing atmospheric concentrations of black carbon (BC), methane and ozone.

* Air Pollution Networks – The aim of the forum is to bring together regional networks, international organisations and other stakeholders to develop effective policies and programmes to protect public health and the environment from the harmful effects of atmospheric pollution.

* The Global Methane Initiative (GMI) is a voluntary, multilateral partnership that aims to reduce global methane emissions and to advance the abatement, recovery and use of methane as a valuable clean energy source. GMI achieves this by creating an international network of partner governments, private sector members, development banks, universities, and NGOs in order to build capacity, develop strategies and markets, and remove barriers to project development for methane reductions.

* The Ozone2Climate Technology Roadshow aims at becoming the key reference and resource for non-HCFC based, energy efficient low carbon, sustainable environmentally friendly affordable technologies available or soon to be available in the market.

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