"While the Copenhagen accord negotiated in the closing hours by a small number of heads of government, including China, India, and the US, is a disappointment to many-in process, form, and content-others will see the full engagement by heads of government as a milestone in climate policy," says Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development. "The true value of the accord depends on the follow-up."
A key aspect of follow up, says Zaelke, is the "fast, forgotten 50% of warming caused by non-CO2 gases and aerosols – black carbon, methane and hydrofluorocarbons. Carbon cuts are essential but won’t result in cooling benefits for up to 1,000 years.
Not only do non-CO2 pollutants make up half of warming, they are the half that can be solved quickly.
Cutting non-CO2 sources of pollution can reduce the risk of passing temperature tipping points for abrupt and irreversible climate changes. Fast action on non-carbon pollution could offset as much as 40 years worth of CO2 emissions, and delay the time when dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system would otherwise be reached.
The 2009 G8 Leaders Declaration commits to fast-action on black carbon and hydrofluorocarbons; the 2009 North American Leaders Declaration commits to reducing HFCs under the Montreal Protocol; the 2009 Tromsø Declaration by the Arctic Council highlights the negative effects of black carbon, methane, and tropospheric ozone on Arctic snow and ice; and two 2009 editorials in Nature emphasize the importance of looking beyond CO2 to short-lived climate forcers as near-term mitigation opportunities.
Lead by the Federated States of Micronesia , island States are promoting two related fast-action strategies under the UN climate convention. The first is to launch a work program on fast-action mitigation immediately. Emissions of black carbon, methane, and tropospheric ozone – all short-lived climate forcers – would be targeted to yield significant near-term benefits. The work program also promotes carbon-negative technologies, such as bio-sequestration through biochar, in order to bring CO2 levels back down to 350 ppm.
The importance of addressing black carbon because of its significant contributions to climate change, ice melt, and respiratory diseases, is gaining steady support: last month, Nancy Sutley, head of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality, announced a US $5 million fund to begin reducing black carbon emissions in the Arctic.
The second fast-action strategy proposed by the islands is to eliminate production and consumption of one of the six greenhouse gases – hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs – using the Montreal Protocol ozone treaty. The Montreal Protocol is widely regarded as the most effective environmental treaty, having already phased out 96 chemicals similar to HFCs, which in addition to rescuing the ozone layer, also resulted in about 222 billion tons of CO2-equivalent in climate mitigation between 1990 and 2010.
Over its 22 years, the ozone treaty has demonstrated that much can be accomplished through a multilateral agreement when all Parties, both developed and developing, are supported through timely assessments of science, technology and economics, a fair financial system that pays the full incremental cost for developing country Parties, and that has mandatory phase-outs for all Parties that lead to quick and cost-effective transitions to ozone- and climate-friendly substitutes, with a grace period for developing countries.
Phasing out production and consumption of HFCs under the Montreal Protocol would result in climate benefits of up to 170 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent by 2050. Island States, the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, along with other supporters of an HFC phase-down under the ozone treaty, are looking to this year’s Montreal Protocol meetings to reach agreement.
"The Parties are beginning to realize that these fast-action strategies are low-hanging fruit that can, and should, be picked now if we expect to prevent catastrophic and likely irreversible consequences that are fast approaching," says Romina Picolotti, former Environment Minister of Argentina.
"For the first time in history the environment is at the top of the political agendas of world leaders," she added. "Climate change has graduated in Copenhagen and is now playing in the big leagues jointly with national security and the economy. We can only hope that our political leaders are up to the challenge and behave responsibly with the fate of the Planet and all citizens of the world in their hands."
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Reducing abrupt climate change risk using the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions, Mario Molina, Durwood Zaelke, K. Madhava Sarma, Stephen O. Andersen, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, and Donald Kaniaru. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2009.
Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development
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