FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR GLOBAL AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Dr Martin Williams Defra, UK NERAM Colloquium V Strategic Policy Directions for Air Quality Risk Management, Vancouver, 16-18 October 2006

Future Directions for Global Air Quality Management

Outline • Urban AQM-how do we best use standards? world-wide?; are there better ways?

• Regional/transboundary/hemispheric air pollution problems – New issues and outreach • Integration of policy areas –air pollution and climate change

Urban AQM and the role of standards

• WHO Global update of Air Quality Guidelines • A significant development with opportunities and challenges for developing and developed countries

WHO Interim Targets and AQ Guidelines for PM

Annual Mean Level WHO IT-1 PM 10 70 PM 2.5 35 WHO-IT-2 WHO IT-3 WHO AQG 50 30 20 25 15 10

• The fact that the guidelines exist will be beneficial to

developing countries

and

should

promote action • The series of interim targets for PM in particular should be helpful • But will there be counter-arguments from industry to challenge what they might argue are arbitrary numbers ?

• If so, how will the risk management process proceed without

definitive

exposure-response coefficients which would enable CBA and other evaluations?

• For

developed

countries, the same arguments apply, but also: • The AQGs themselves will be very difficult to achieve – experience has shown this already in Europe for PM 10 and NO 2 and is likely to be the case for the AQG for PM 2.5 • The CAFÉ process in Europe has to date not used

a priori

standards to manage PM but has used the chain Scenario->emissions->

exposures->health effects

->monetised costs and benefits >

air quality target

/control measures

• As levels approach the AQG – certainly for PM, probably for the other pollutants – successive reductions will be difficult to justify. How will these difficulties be overcome? • Persuasive evidence - role for authoritative evaluations and interpretations of the literature for policy purposes • Do standards still have a role? Or does the exposure reduction approach have advantages ?

• It requires a

reduction

in the

mean over all measurement sites in the area

Hemispheric transport Our current understanding

• Well documented evidence mostly in very clean environments as the Arctic and remote places and for air pollution episodes. • Concerns tropospheric ozone, fine particulate matter, persistent organic pollutants, mercury … • The size of intercontintental transport and its influence is poorly quantified. For some pollutants (Hg) in the range of 10 to 75 percent and thus significant. • Also for ozone the hemispheric burden is significant. For PM the intercontinental transport less certain possibly up to 2 ug/m3 • The effectiveness of intercontinental transport depends on local and regional conditions. Often associated with meteorology such as deep convention and frontal systems (WCB).

North American pollution plume observed during CONTRACE

Stohl et al., JGR, 108, 4370, 2003 Huntrieser et al., JGR,

110

, DO1305, doi: 10.1029/2004JD005045

SeaWifs image on 15 November Ozone from MOZAIC ascent

100 Horton Station (920 m) 80 60 40 20 0 5 25 10 15 20 November 2001

Ozone at Horton station

30

Introduction to TF HTAP

CONVENTION ON LONG-RANGE TRANSBOUNDARY AIR POLLUTION

50 Parties in Europe, North America and Central Asia

•The Task Force is charged to “plan and conduct the technical work necessary to: • develop a fuller understanding of the hemispheric transport of air pollution ...

• estimate the hemispheric transport of specific air pollutants for the use in reviews of protocols to the Convention • prepare technical reviews thereon for submission to the Steering Body of EMEP”

Introduction to TF Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution

Policy-Relevant Science Questions

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

How does hemispheric transport affect air pollution? How much do emissions in one country or region affect air pollution in another country or region? How confident are we of the results and what is our best estimate of the uncertainties?

How will changes in emissions in one country or region affect air pollution in another country or region?

How may the source-receptor relationships change over the next 20 to 50 years due to changes in emissions?

How may the source-receptor relationships change due to climate change? What efforts are needed to develop an integrated system of observation data and models?

Expectations for Assessment Products

TF HTAP Assessment Products

2009 Assessment Report

• State of knowledge concerning intercontinental transport of air pollutants in the Northern Hemisphere • Covering all pollutants of interest under the LRTAP Convention • Addressing identified policy-relevant science questions

2007 Interim Report

• Significance of intercontinental transport of air pollutants within the Northern Hemisphere for attaining the objectives of the 1999 Gothenburg Protocol

Links between climate, air pollution and energy policies

• There are physical and economic interactions between the control of air pollution emissions and GHG mitigation • If these problems are considered separately: • From the an air pollution perspective: • Baseline AP emissions, impacts and control costs (for fixed AP legislation) depend on the level of GHG mitigation • Costs of strengthened AQ policies depend on the level of GHG mitigation • Further AP control strategies have co-benefits on GHG mitigation costs.

• From a climate perspective: • GHG mitigation costs depend on the level of AP control • GHG mitigation costs have co-benefits on AQ impacts

Links between climate, air pollution and energy policies

120% 110% 100% 90% 80% 20 € 0 € National NEC projections CAFE BL 70% 60% 75% 90 € 80% 85% 90% 95% 100%

CO 2 emissions relative to the UNFCCC baseyear emissions

SO2 NOx PM25 105%

Cost savings from an integrated approach - Provisional GAINS estimates, EU-25, 2020

Cost savings from an integrated approach Provisional GAINS estimates, EU-25, 2020 Integrated approach: Joint optimization of GHG and air pollution control Baseline Ambition level of Thematic Strategy

Benchmark -5% GHGs -20% GHGs -20% GHGs

Links between climate, air pollution and energy policies

• There are short term trade-offs:Diesels (Black Carbon vs CO 2 ), CHP and Micro CHP, SO 2 & FGD • There are longer term win-wins: Low carbon intensity energy generation; low carbon intensity transport, energy efficiency

Links between climate, air pollution and energy policies

• An integrated approach could reduce total costs for GHG mitigation and air pollution control.

• Cost savings can be immediate, they are “real money” and they occur to the actors who have to invest into mitigation.

• GAINS –Global IAM model built at IIASA - offers a tool for such an integrated analysis to identify concrete measures that are beneficial.

Summary - Future directions for Global Air Quality Management

• Air Quality standards for protection of human health?

• Global air quality standards with stepwise improvements WHO 2005-

opportunities

but also

threats

• Exposure reductions ensure benefits for the population-if they can be built into legislation • How to make progress when we are reaching a point of diminishing returns? Standards alone may not be enough • Air pollution not only a local issue - transboundary character of air pollution –ozone, PM … require regional and global measures • Integration of policy areas –air pollution and climate change –cost effective joint policies – need to manage the short term trade offs and gain the longer term synergies

• Thank you • Merci bien • Diolch yn fawr