[Stoves] Off-topic news: Black Carbon in Europe: Targeting an Air Pollutant and Climate Forcer (IASS)

[Nikhil Desai]

This seems to be along the lines of the Warsaw "summit" Crispin mentioned a
month ago.

While I wrote in favor of what these authors call "coordinate policymaking
on air quality and climate change" a little more than a decade ago, when I
was taken in by the promises of "win-wins", I have since turned rather
skeptical for various reasons. I think air quality management takes
priority - without bothering about aDALYs from diesel engines or stoves -
and there may well be trade-offs with "climate policy".

Here, it is unsettling that once again fuels and emissions are conflated as
in "air quality protections should be added to avoid unintentional
backsliding on air quality via, e.g., the promotion of biomass as a
renewable fuel in the residential heating sector."

The term "renewable" has different meanings and values depending on the
context, and indiscrimate preference qua "renewable", amounts to bad
politics blended with bad science. But here their rationale is something
else --

"The initial version of the emission inventory used in the study pointed to
significant countryto-country differences and predicted that the proposed
measure would result in only minimal reductions in black carbon and
particulate matter.9 However, an updated version of the emission
inventory10, which applied a consistent methodology for all of Europe,
predicted decreases of up to 50% in ambient concentrations of black carbon
in urban hotspots and an overall decrease of between 15 % and 40 % in fine
particulate matter over continental Europe."


>From air quality viewpoint, ambient concentrations of a particular
pollutant are not, by themselves, indicative of the seriousness of health
risk; it is the composition and dosage, along with individual attributes
(age, sex, health condition, prior history), that matter and, depending on
the disease impact, treatment via health care systems or avoidance of
certain exposures may well be socially optimal choices than a blanket
attack on source sectors or technology/fuel mix.

In short, the policy note fails to even articulate proper policy choices.
That residential combustion will become the dominant source (by sectoral %
shares) of black carbon is neither here nor there, unless BC were to be
targeted for total elimination no matter the location. And it is
questionable whether the instruments for BC emission reductions are uniform
in their costs and impacts (e.g., reduction in emission loads by combustion
changes and smoke collection versus switch to gas and electricity).

Similar considerations apply to cookstoves using solid fuels, depending on
the context. The emissions -> concentrations -> exposures -> disease ->
premature mortality (or global warming) model is theory without facts.

Nikhil



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <mar.kathleen at gmail.com>

http://www.iass-potsdam.de/sites/default/files/files/
policy_brief_2_2017_en_black_carbon_in_europe.pdf

For questions or comments please contact the authors.

Short summary:

This policy brief presents recommendations for action on black carbon, an
air pollutant and climate forcer, in the European context. Given the
current emissions profile in Europe, targeting the diesel transport and
residential combustion sectors will be essential for prioritizing black
carbon reductions when taking action on fine particulate matter, as
required by the new European National Emissions Ceilings (NEC) Directive.
Development of national emission inventories for black carbon using a
consistent methodology will also foster better, more cost-effective policy
decisions. Finally, adopting a coordinated approach to manage air quality
and climate change will help maximize win-wins and avoid trade-offs. The
ongoing development of the European Renewable Energy Directive and the
associated Governance Directive are identified as key pieces of legislation
where air quality protections should be added to avoid unintentional
backsliding on air quality via, e.g., the promotion of biomass as a
renewable fuel in the residential heating sector.
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