Researchers find that reducing soot, ozone and HFCs, whle adding biochar, will push back catastrophic climate change by 40 years

In Washington, researchers led by Nobel Laureate Dr. Mario Molina have found that the “dangerous threshold of 2?C warming” can be pushed back 40 years by reducing non-CO2 climate change agents such as black carbon soot, tropospheric ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons, as well as expanding bio-sequestration through biochar production.

The scientists are reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that a binding legal agreement to cut HFC—the Montreal Protocol ozone treaty—has already delayed climate change by seven to 12 years.

A fast-action strategy presented in the paper is reducing black carbon soot, an aerosol produced largely from the incomplete combustion of diesel fuels and biofuels, and from biomass burning.  It is now considered to be the second or third largest contributor to climate change.

Black carbon is responsible for almost 50 percent of the 1.9?C increase in warming of the Arctic since 1890 as well as significant melting of the Himalaya-Tibetan glaciers that feed the major rivers of Asia, providing fresh water to billions of people. Researchers consider black carbon an ideal target for achieving quick mitigation because it only remains in the atmosphere a few days to a few weeks and can be reduced by expanding the use of diesel particulate filters for vehicles and clean-burning or solar cookstoves to replace those burning dung and wood. With indoor air pollution killing 1.6 million people a year, global action to cut soot emissions would reap major benefits for both public health and climate.

Ground level or tropospheric ozone doubles as a major climate forcer and health hazard. It also lowers crop yields. A recent study reported that ozone’s damage to crop yields in 2000 resulted in an economic loss of up to $26 billion annually. It is formed by “ozone precursor” gases such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, methane, and other hydrocarbons, many of which can be reduced by improving the efficiency of industrial combustion processes. Reducing tropospheric ozone by 50 percent could buy another decade’s worth of time for countries to start making substantial cuts in CO2.

Biochar is one of the few promising “carbon-negative” strategies that can drawdown existing concentrations of CO2. The fine-grained charcoal product is a stable form of carbon, produced from pyrolysis, that can be plowed into soil where it remains for hundreds to thousands of years, also serving as a natural fertilizer.

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