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“ THE URGENT NEED TO ADDRESS SLCPS COMES FROM THE MILLIONS WHO WOULD OTHERWISE DIE EARLY FROM POOR AIR QUALITY, THE TOLL OF THE REGIONAL CLIMATE DISRUPTIONS AND CROP YIELD LOSSES THEY CAUSE, AND THEIR UNIQUE ABILITY TO SLOW DOWN NEAR-TERM CLIMATE CHANGE”Hence there is a clear path to reducing SLCP emissions rapidly. There are also societal benefits that accrue from an SLCP reduction strategy that are not related directly to emissions. Methane that escapes during the storage and transmission of natural gas is lost product, so fixing leaks generally pays for itself over a few years or less. Releases during extraction of coal, gas and oil can also typically be captured and the methane utilized, again with overall cost savings. The same is true for several other sources, such as municipal landfills or anaerobic digesters for farm waste. Greater use of captured methane also displaces the need for other fossil energy, further decreasing emissions and lowering costs.Similarly, reducing emissions of products of incomplete combustion is typically accomplished by increasing efficiency, with substantial ancillary benefits. In the case of solid biomass fuel use, use of clean cookstoves and heating stoves can dramatically reduce fuel usage whereas switching to modern sources of energy eliminates biomass fuels entirely. These transformations can not only reduce deforestation, and hence net carbon dioxide emissions, but greatly affect human wellbeing, especially in the developing world where it is estimated that 1-5 billion women-hours are lost per year gathering fuel. Children are also often tasked with fuel gathering, and reducing the need for this activity can thus substantially increase the time available for education and reduce the danger women are exposed to during fuel gathering. In cases where fuel is purchased, such as by users of charcoal stoves or in small industries, increased efficiency can lead to substantial fuel cost savings. Broader transformations, such as increased biking and walking, not only reduce emissions but also improve health via increased physical exercise. Hence in many cases there are both economic and human development incentives alongside those more directly related to emissions reductions.Though monetization of the benefits shows that for most SLCP reduction strategies the net societal benefits greatly outweigh the costs, there are nonetheless implementation barriers. In some cases, these may be the upfront capital expenditures required, for example to pay for methane capture at a municipal landfill. In other cases they may be cultural, such as a preference for traditional cooking techniques or the misconception that methane from coal mining has to be vented immediately to ensure mine safety. In some cases, such as in the oil and gas industry, even though methane capture pays for itself based only on the resale value of the captured gas, the rate of return may still be low compared to other uses of the same capital. Many SLCP controls also face an economic misalignment between the few who must take action to reduce emissions, such as fossil fuel or small brick industries, diesel vehicle manufacturers or municipalities, and the many who reap the benefits from improved air quality and climate change mitigation. As long as environmental externalities including climate change and air quality degradation remain fully or largely excluded from the world’s economic systems, such economic barriers are likely to remain large.While economic misalignments in SLCP-related benefits are present considering individual actors relative to society at large, they are greatly reduced at the national level versus the global commons compared with carbon dioxide-related benefits. In the case of SLCPs, those countries that take action reap the greatest rewards for reducing products of incomplete combustion as these greatly affect national air quality. There is also not an issue of determining historic responsibility since SLCPs are short-lived. Hence there is every incentive to take strong local action rather than free riding on the actions of others. Furthermore, the air quality and health benefits of SLCP reductions are near-term. Thus although implementing an SLCP reduction strategy requires considerable effort, there is no misalignment between local spending now and benefits that are largely remote and far away in space and time as there is for carbon dioxide reductions (although many of those can also improve air quality, and hence a multiple impact viewpoint can be useful in those strategies as well). Success in controlling SLCPs could also help foster a sense of the tangible benefits to citizens of actions to improve the environment and to nations of international cooperation to tackle environmental problems, such as participating in the cooperative activities of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. This could facilitate progress in other areas as well. Success could also help establish a precedent for fully considering a broader range of benefits resulting from climate (and other environmental) policies, as without recognizing the total societal impacts we cannot chart the optimal pathways forward and recognize the huge potential benefits of strategies such as targeted SLCP reductions. ■ABOUT THE AUTHORDrew Shindell is a Professor at Duke University following two decades at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. His work includes >175 peer-reviewed publications. He has received awards from Scientific American, NASA, the NSF and the EPA, been elected AGU and AAAS fellow, and testified before both houses of the US Congress (at the request of both parties). He chaired the 2011 UNEP/WMO Integrated Assessment of Black Carbon and Tropospheric Ozone and was a Coordinating Lead Author on the 2013 IPCC Assessment. He chairs the Scientific Advisory Panel to the Climate and Clean Air Coalition of nations and organizations.Photo Credit: Kim Jae-HwanGLOBAL VOICES 113