Daily Dose of Air Pollution: October 2011

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Air Pollution Alerts - October 30th, 2011

News & Information; Every Sunday
(Last on October 23rd, 2011)

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Supply Chain of CO2 Emissions

Click on the image to access the website.. Supply Chain of CO2 Emissions

Where is the Carbon Coming From?

Article from Guardian, October 21st, 2011

Which of the following accounts for the largest share of the UK's carbon footprint? All our holiday flights, all the power used in our homes or … Russia?

Okay, so it's kind of a trick question, but according to a scientific paper published this week, we might reasonably conclude that the answer is Russia – though to understand why it's necessary to go back a couple of steps.

For the purposes of the Kyoto treaty, a nation's carbon footprint is considered to be a sum of all the greenhouse gas released within its borders. But as many people – myself included – have been pointing out for years, that approach ignores all the laptops, leggings, lampshades and other goods that rich countries import from China and elsewhere.

If we want any chance of a fair global climate deal, the now-familiar argument goes, we need to rethink the way we measure emissions to allocate some of the carbon pouring out of Chinese, Indian and Mexican factories and power plants to the countries importing good from those countries.

The new scientific paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, points out that this argument – though persuasive – tells only half of the story. If you want to understand how carbon footprints are affected by international trade flows, the paper argues, you need to consider trade not only in gadgets and garments but also in fossil fuels themselves. After all, though country X might import a television that was made in country Y, it's quite possible that country Y in turn imported some of the coal, oil or gas consumed by the television factory from country Z.

Of course, there's nothing revelatory in the idea that fossil fuels are traded between nations. We all know that, say, Saudi Arabia produces much of the world's oil. But what the academics behind the new data have done is a remarkable feat of number crunching: they've tracked the carbon flows of virtually the whole world, from the countries extracting the oil, gas and coal via the countries in which it's burned to the countries that ultimately consume the goods and services all that energy is used to create.

As a result, we can see how much of the coal mined in Australia is used to support lifestyles in the Europe; or what proportion of all the energy, goods and services consumed in Japan was ultimately created with oil from the Middle East.

All of which will appeal to climate data enthusiasts, but is the study actually important? I think it is – not so much because it has any obvious practical applications, but because the data helps reminds campaigners, consumers and policymakers alike that the climate-change problem is ultimately about fossil fuel coming out of the ground. That sounds an obvious thing to say but it's a point often forgotten in all the discussions about clean energy or national emissions cuts – both of which are necessary but not sufficient to meet the challenge of leaving most of the world's hydrocarbons in the ground.

To meet that challenge, we need a global climate deal. And to increase the chances of getting one, one of many things we need to do, I would argue, is to think more about the whole chain of responsibility and benefits related to fossil fuel use. It's easy to simplify the debate and say that the US or Europe are entirely responsible for the goods they import from China; but in truth China also benefit economically from that trade and – crucially – so do the powers that be in the countries that provide China with its oil imports.

Which takes us back to the question I posed at the beginning of this post. Russia, it turns out, provides about 6.8% of the fossil fuels burned in the UK. It also exports its fuels to other countries, which in turn export goods to us. All told, Russian fuels account for almost a tenth of our national carbon footprint – more than our domestic electricity use or our leisure flights.

Does that make Russia 10% responsible for the UK's footprint? No, of course not. But in the same way that most of us would allocate some of the responsibility for drug use to the producers and importers, or of gun crime to the small arms manufacturers, or of chemical pollution to the chemical companies, surely we need to start thinking of responsibility for fossil fuel use in a more nuanced way. It's global emissions that matter – and globally the economic benefits of fossil fuel use are widely spread around.

The Daily Show: What is Science Up To - Climate Change?

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Friday, October 28, 2011

UN: Wasting 1.8 Billion Young People

today..
From Mr. Lalloobhoy Battliwala

A Guardian story below. UNFPA talks of "1.8 billion .. aged between 10 and 24, 90% of those .. in the developing world."

I have been looking at world population stats for several months now. (Because Russ dared to challenge some numbers I picked; besides, every reference to Paul Ehrlich irritates me). I pulled a number out of air - an average of some 100 million people PER YEAR turning 15 over the next 20-30 years who will not have a full package within reasonable distances of basic infrastructure services, variously defined to include basic energy (small amounts of electricity, cleaner cooking and heating), drinking water (even irrigation in some places), sanitation and waste disposal; basic IECTs and libraries; basic (primary, secondary, tertiary) education and health; and yes, administrative, commercial and police/judicial services. I kept drainage and roads out because while the most basic enablers for nearly everything else, including plain survival or market linkages, people tend to settle where floods don't routinely wipe out everything and they have some means of transport. There are many 'troubled spots' without drainage and roads, of course. I also didn't include housing and vehicles.

That is, everything that for the currently rich countries was established (save digital technologies) nearly universally, and for rich cities in the poor countries.

When I was born, world under-15 population was a little less than a billion, 75% of it in the 'less developed regions' (UN definition).

By 2000, world under-15 population had nearly doubled to about 1.8 b people, with about 88% in the less developed regions. This will continue to be the case for the rest of the century - about 1.6 billion youngsters in the less developed regions throughout (Some of it is an artifact of demographic models).

An average of 200 million children per year from 2000 to 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050 in less developed countries EXCLUDING China. I am assuming that the poorer and more remote, less 'connected', poorly 'serviced', communities and people have higher fertility, and even their survival rates improve throughout all age groups; they account for about a half of the total new children on average, even as infrastructure services improve.

That is, some 100 million children a year, or three billion citizens of humanity over the next thirty years will not have the "minimum conditions" - apart from shelter and food security - to lead healthy, productive, peacefully "engaged" lives.

Yes, I happen to believe that a healthy, productive, voluntarily engaged populace is the ONLY objective of public policy. The means and scale are 'special interests'.

A couple of billion people wasted. Four billion more in the rest of my lifetime (should I live that long)? (Apart from the newborns, the rest of the population without basic infrastructure is another billion or more. And the 55+ population is also increasing. I am talking about developing countries excluding China.)

Oh, well. The priesthood of 'clean' energy is fantasizing about 'green jobs' for Africa. Whether enough youngsters are healthy and educated is the first question. Some will keep on polishing shoes.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Wall Street Journal on Seven Billion People

today..
From Mr. Lalloobhoy Battliwala

An article, followed by the author's blog entry.

"not every nation carries out a census, and the U.N. says it hasn't been able to use census data more recent than 2005 for countries that contain 62% of the world's population. It has no data, census or otherwise, for 25% of the world's people since 2005."

Heck, what statistics are any better? GHG emissions and sinks? Didn't stop anybody from churning out scare scenarios.

"Projecting future population counts — such as the U.N.’s forecast in 2005 that global population will exceed nine billion in 2050 — can be even dicier, as the numbers depend on several factors, such as trends in human fertility. “The problem is that you’re projecting changes in human behavior, and also it depends on the changes in the level of contraceptive prevalence,” Johnson said...“We may have completely new fertility technologies,” added Gerhard K. Heilig, chief of population estimates and projections for the U.N."

Yes, and we may also have completely new technologies for disease and deaths, from disease or accidents or violence.

The human MORTALITY patterns are more uncertain than the FERTILITY ones, but everybody obsesses about sex and not enough about death. Don't worry. Be happy. Really.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Outdoor Air Pollution in Cities Across the World

Download the database

The database contains results of urban outdoor air pollution monitoring from almost 1100 cities in 91 countries. Air quality is represented by annual mean concentration of fine particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5, i.e. particles smaller than 10 or 2.5 microns).

The database covers the period from 2003 to 2010, with the majority of values for the years 2008 and 2009. The primary sources of data include publicly available national/subnational reports and web sites, regional networks such as the Asian Clean Air Initiative and the European Airbase, and selected publications. The database aims to be representative for human exposure, and therefore primarily captures measurements from monitoring stations located in urban background, urban traffic, residential, commercial and mixed areas.

The world's average PM10 levels by region range from 21 to 142 ug/m3, with a world's average of 71 ug/m3. Additional details on the database are provided in the "Methods used for compiling the urban outdoor air pollution database".

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Air Pollution Alerts - October 23rd, 2011

News & Information; Every Sunday
(Last on October 9th, 2011)

Friday, October 21, 2011

New Atmospheric Emissions Inventories and Scenarios for IPCC v5

Link to the article.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 14, 2011) — Emissions of the main greenhouse gases, reactive gaseous and particulate chemical compounds have been inventoried over the period 1850-2300 by an international collaboration involving scientists from the Laboratoire "Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales" (CNRS/UPMC/UVSQ)(1) and the Laboratoire d'Aérologie (CNRS/Université Paul Sabatier)(2). This quantification has enabled researchers to propose four new scenarios that will be used in future climatic simulations of the 5th IPCC report, due in 2013.

This work, which is published in a special edition of the journal Climatic Change, was supported by CNRS, CNES and ADEME.

The scientists firstly refined estimations of the main greenhouse gas emissions, reactive chemical compounds such as nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide, and particles from Earth's atmosphere over the period 1850-2300. Coordinated by Claire Granier and Catherine Liousse, both CNRS researchers, the French teams took a particular interest in emissions generated by human activity and the combustion of biomass.

On the basis of these inventories, the scientists then established new scenarios(3) describing a wide spectrum of possible futures for the main factors of climate change: greenhouse gases, atmospheric pollutants and land use. These scenarios will be integrated in climatic simulations of the future by most climate modelers. Such developments will be used to draft the next IPCC report, due to be published in 2013, and will also make it possible to explore the costs and benefits of the decisions taken today in terms of climate policies.

With support from CNRS, CNES and ADEME, the two French teams have designed a database known as ECCAD(4), which is available to the whole scientific community and can be consulted at http://ether.ipsl.jussieu.fr/eccad.

1 -- This laboratory is part of the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, which encompasses six CNRS joint research units.

2 -- Part of the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, which encompasses seven CNRS joint research units.

3 -- Known as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs)

4 -- Emissions of Atmospheric Compounds & Compilation of Ancillary Data

NASA Presents a Visual Tour of Earth's Fires

Link to the article

Click on the image to access video.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2011) — NASA has released a series of new satellite data visualizations that show tens of millions of fires detected worldwide from space since 2002. The visualizations show fire observations made by the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, instruments onboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites.

NASA maintains a comprehensive research program using satellites, aircraft and ground resources to observe and analyze fires around the world. The research helps scientists understand how fire affects our environment on local, regional and global scales.

"What you see here is a very good representation of the satellite data scientists use to understand the global distribution of fires and to determine where and how fire distribution is responding to climate change and population growth," said Chris Justice of the University of Maryland, College Park, a scientist who leads NASA's effort to use MODIS data to study the world's fires.

One of the new visualizations takes viewers on a narrated global tour of fires detected between July 2002 and July 2011. The fire data is combined with satellite views of vegetation and snow cover to show how fires relate to seasonal changes. The Terra and Aqua satellites were launched in 1999 and 2002, respectively.

The tour begins by showing extensive grassland fires spreading across interior Australia and the eucalyptus forests in the northwestern and eastern part of the continent. The tour then shifts to Asia where large numbers of agricultural fires are visible first in China in June 2004, then across a huge swath of Europe and western Russia in August. It then moves across India and Southeast Asia, through the early part of 2005. The tour continues across Africa, South America, and concludes in North America.

The global fire data show that Africa has more abundant burning than any other continent. MODIS observations have shown that some 70 percent of the world's fires occur in Africa. During a fairly average burning season from July through September 2006, the visualizations show a huge outbreak of savanna fires in Central Africa driven mainly by agricultural activities, but also driven by lightning strikes.

Fires are comparatively rare in North America, making up just 2 percent of the world's burned area each year. The fires that receive the most attention in the United States -- the uncontrolled forest fires in the West -- are less visible than the wave of agricultural fires prominent in the Southeast and along the Mississippi River Valley. Some of the large wildfires that ravaged Texas this year are visible in the animation.

NASA maintains multiple satellite instruments capable of detecting fires and supports a wide range of fire-related research. Such efforts have yielded the most widely used data records of global fire activity and burned area in the world. NASA-supported scientists use the data to advance understanding about Earth's climate system, ecosystem health, and the global carbon cycle.

NASA's Applied Sciences Program seeks out innovative and practical benefits that result from studying fires. For example, the program has found ways to integrate space-based wildfire observations into air quality models used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that help protect public health.

NASA will extend the United States' capability to monitor and study global fires from space with the launch this month of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project. The satellite is the first mission designed to collect data to increase our understanding of long-term climate change and improve weather forecasts.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

CMAQ Version 5.0 Released

EPA Releases Air Quality Model to Study Harmful Air Pollution

Model will help scientists protect public health

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a new version of its Community Multi-scale Air Quality model (CMAQ) that uses up-to-the minute meteorology and air chemistry data to determine how weather conditions affect pollution, and how pollution can affect and change weather. Version 5.0 of CMAQ allows scientists to analyze air quality at smaller, finer-resolution settings for individual towns and cities, and model air quality for the entire northern hemisphere. Currently, scientists use CMAQ to estimate air quality levels at the regional and national scales.

“The ability to apply the CMAQ model to larger scales will allow scientists to better understand the ways that air pollution moves around the globe, and provide much-needed information for decision makers in protecting public health,” said Dr. Paul Anastas, Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Research and Development. “The model represents collaborative work among scientists in the fields of engineering, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, atmospheric science, and meteorology.”

Air quality has a direct impact on people’s health. EPA research has shown that air contaminated with common pollutants like ozone, acidic gases, and toxic components of particulate matter can aggravate asthma symptoms and put stress on cardiovascular systems. CMAQ 5.0 allows scientists to study air pollution at the local level and much larger scales. Version 5.0 has the capability to use data from other air quality models. This gives the system more flexibility to address new and increasingly complex air pollution issues, and incorporate input from a worldwide community of CMAQ users.

Earlier versions of CMAQ have been used for more than a decade by EPA and states for air quality management. CMAQ uses meteorology and emissions data to evaluate air pollution trends and distribution. The system models multiple air pollutants, which include ozone, particulate matter, and air toxics to help air quality regulators determine the best air quality management scenarios for their communities, regions, and states. Also, the National Weather Service uses CMAQ to produce daily U.S. forecasts for ozone air quality.

More information on CMAQ: http://www.epa.gov/AMD/CMAQ

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Assessment Tools from SLoCAT

Project Design Document for the Delhi Metro Phase II CDM project.

World Bank designed ROADEO (Road Emissions Optimization), software for calculating GHG emissions at the planning, design, and construction phases, calculator user manual, and a report on GHG emissions generated by road construction and rehabilitation activities, which is classified by work categories and includes analysis of local and international best practices.

ALMEC. 2009. “Guidelines for Preliminary Estimations of Carbon Emissions Reduction in Urban Transport Projects.” Final report and calculators. May 2009. Series of Excel based calculators on BRT, Bio Diesel and Idling developed at request of the World Bank.

The UNEP Risoe Tool for Selecting CDM Methodologies & Technologies – www.cdm-meth.org, gives an overview of the technologies used in CDM projects and the sectors (including transportation) where they are applicable as well as the methodologies and their applicability for every subtype.

Emission Reduction from Bus Rapid Transit and Pedestrian Improvements in Jakarta, Progress Report 2008 - 2010. Report produced by Pelangi as part of MoU with ITDP in which the applicability of CDM methodology AM0031 is reviewed for the Trans-Jakarta BRT.

Manual for calculating Greenhouse Gas Benefits of GEF projects. The Manual provides step-by-step guide for development of baseline, impact estimation and calibration of transport projects across a wide range of interventions including transport efficiency improvement, public transport, non-motorized transport, transport demand management, and comprehensive transport strategies.

Guidelines for Calculating GHG Benefits from Clean Technology Fund Investments in the Transport Sector. CTF co-financed operations in transport will be required to calculate GHG emissions reductions resulting from the investment. Annex 3 in this document summarizes the guidelines to be applied in CTF cofinanced operations.

This ADB evaluation knowledge brief provides new tools to measure how different transport projects funded by ADB affect carbon emissions.

Based on a case study in India ADB also published a report on measuring GHG emissions from road projects.

The Ecological Transport Information Tool (EcoTransIT) calculates environmental impacts of any freight transport. Thereby it is possible to determine the energy consumption, CO2 and exhaust emissions transported by rail, road, ship and aircraft in any combination. EcoTransIT is free of charge for any non-commerical use. http://www.ecotransit.org/index.en.phtml

UNEP has launched a cleaner fleet management toolkit which evaluates the impact of vehicle fleets on environment, including climate change, and human health. It can also be used to develop and assess the impact of corrective actions.

IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Chapter 3: Mobile Combustion. This document describes the guidelines Non-Annex I Parties are expected to use for estimating and reporting their national GHG inventories.

IGES has been working closely with researchers at Nihon University in Tokyo, Japan and associated organizations in Thailand and the Philippines to develop such a tool. “Mainstreaming a Transport Co-benefits Approach: A Guide to Evaluating Transport Projects” represents the result of these efforts. The guidelines or TCG, provide a set of user-friendly, step-by-step instructions for policymakers, transport planners, and development specialists interested in quantifying co-benefits of transport projects in Asia.

CHANGER is the greenhouse gas calculator developed by the International Road Federation (IRF) specifically for road infrastructure projects. The tool is very flexible allowing estimation of GHG emissions for each of the construction operations performed or for the entire project. The results are expressed in tons of CO2 equivalent. A video presentation of CHANGER illustrating its main features is available on www.irfghg.org

Methodology for Determining GHG Emission Reductions Through Bicycle Sharing Projects. This methodology is applicable for project activities under the Verified Carbon Standard that reduce GHG emissions through the usage of public sharing-based bicycle projects which introduce an alternative mode of transportation to displace other, more carbon intensive modes.

Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Analysis Techniques for Transportation Projects. This report developed on behalf of American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Standing Committee on Environment identifies a total of 17 tools or methods that can be used to analyze the GHG implications of transportation projects. Existing tools are categorized into three groups: (a) Transportation GHG calculation tools, (b) Transportation/emissions strategy analysis tools, and (c) Energy/economic forecasting tools.

Perspective on CO2. Detailed phased approach to calculate emissions from freight and logistics. (In Dutch). English summary available at http://issuu.com/sdcom/docs/co2inperspective

NTM. Online emission calculator for road, rail, sea and air freight.

Methodology for Transport Energy Efficiency from Light Weight Pallets
This methodology outlines procedures to estimate the avoided net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from project activities involving the use of pallets - the flat, portable structures that support goods during handling, transportation and storage - that are lighter in weight than their conventional alternatives for freight transport.

Sunday, October 09, 2011

Air Pollution Alerts - October 9th, 2011

News & Information; Every Sunday
(Last on October 2nd, 2011)

World Bank, October, 2011
Greenhouse Gas Emission Mitigation in Road Construction and Rehabilitation: A Toolkit for Developing Countries.

The Hindu Business Line, October 9th, 2011
Challenges of mobility.

The Hindu, October 9th, 2011
Delhi Zoo safe for inmates.

Hindustan Times, October 9th, 2011
New BMC norms for your footpaths.

The City Fix, October 7th, 2011
Making Room for Delhi’s Bicycle Culture.

Waste Management World, October 7th, 2011
Jindal Group's upcoming waste-to-energy plant has Delhi fuming.

The Guardian, October 7th, 2011
Europe's greenhouse gas emissions rise.

The Guardian, October 6th, 2011
Airlines can be charged for carbon pollution, court rules.

The Guardian, October 5th, 2011
Melting Arctic ice clears the way for supertanker voyages.

The Live Mint, October 4th, 2011
Soot-monsoon link to be studied.

Climate-L, October 3rd, 2011
The urban dimension of climate change.

The Guardian, October 3rd, 2011
China to tighten air pollution standards.

Times of India, October 3rd, 2011
Set emission cut target date for all nations.

All Africa, October 1st, 2011
Uganda: WHO Warns of Increased Air Pollution Deaths.

The Hindu, September 30th, 2011
Do aerosols have an impact on Indian monsoon?

Biofuels Digest, September 27th, 2011
The Third Way: Advanced biofuels as a system of systems.

Brookings, August 2011
Energy and Green Growth: Recasting the Options, Re-envisioning Sustainability.

Sunday, October 02, 2011

Air Pollution Alerts - October 2nd, 2011

News & Information; Every Sunday
(Last on September 25th, 2011)