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This report explains how climate change and development in wildfire-prone areas are driving up the risks and costs of wildfires; points out why current policies and practices may be worsening the situation; highlights the many different impacts and costs of wildfires; and provides recommendations for what we can do to limit these costs.

Two US senators went public with this proposal to cut short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) which are currently responsible for 40 per cent or more of global warming. Introducing the Super Pollutants Act of 2014, senators Chris Murphy (Democrat, Connecticut) and Susan Collins (Republican, Maine) have called for establishing a task force to review specific policies and laws to reduce black carbon, methane, and high-global warming potential (GWP) hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

A Bill to establish a task force to review policies and measures to promote, and to develop best practices for, reduction of short-lived climate pollutants, and for other purposes.

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Senators Murphy (D-Connecticut) and Collins (R-Maine) announced today their plans to introduce the Super Pollutants Act of 2014 to cut short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) by requiring the Administration to establish a task force to review specific policies and laws to reduce black carbon, methane, and high-global warming potential (GWP) hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). SLCPs currently account for 40% or more of global warming. Because they are fast acting, they can provide more than half the solution needed to stay below the 2°C guardrail through the end of the century.

Emissions of gases and particles from the combustion of fossil fuels and biofuels in Africa are expected to increase significantly in the near future due to the rapid growth of African cities and megacities. There is currently no regional emissions inventory that provides estimates of anthropogenic combustion for the African continent. This work provides a quantification of the evolution of African combustion emissions from 2005 to 2030, using a bottom-up method.

Slowing the rate of global warming over the near term by cutting short-lived climate pollutants to complement carbon dioxide reductions for the long term. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are responsible for 55-60% of anthropogenic radiative forcing. Fast and aggressive CO2 mitigation is essential to combat the resulting climate change.

Black carbon aerosol plays a unique and important role in Earth's climate system. Black carbon is a type of carbonaceous material with a unique combination of physical properties. This assessment provides an evaluation of black-carbon climate forcing that is comprehensive in its inclusion of all known and relevant processes and that is quantitative in providing best estimates and uncertainties of the main forcing terms: direct solar absorption, influence on liquid, mixed-phase, and ice clouds, and deposition on snow and ice.

Concentrations of air pollutants from vehicles are elevated along roadways, indicating that human exposure in transportation microenvironments may not be adequately characterized by centrally located monitors. We report results from w180 h of real-time measurements of fine particle and black carbon mass concentration (PM2.5, BC) and ultrafine particle number concentration (PN) inside a common vehicle, the auto-rickshaw, in New Delhi, India.

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