HR: 09:15h
AN: A51B-04    [Abstracts]
TI: The Climate Impact of the Household Sector in China
AU: * Aunan, K
EM: kristin.aunan@cicero.uio.no
AF: CICERO, P.O. Box 1129 Blindern, Oslo, 0318 Norway
AU: Berntsen, T K
EM: t.k.berntsen@cicero.uio.no
AF: CICERO, P.O. Box 1129 Blindern, Oslo, 0318 Norway
AU: Rypdal, K
EM: kristin.rypdal@cicero.uio.no
AF: CICERO, P.O. Box 1129 Blindern, Oslo, 0318 Norway
AU: Streets, D G
EM: dstreets@anl.gov
AF: Argonne National Laboratory, DIS/900 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, Ill 60439 United States
AU: Woo, J
EM: woojh21@cgrer.uiowa.edu
AF: University of Iowa, 252 Iowa Advanced Technology Labs, Iowa City, IA 52242 United States
AU: Smith, K R
EM: Krksmith@berkeley.edu
AF: University of California Berkeley , Environmental Health Sciences Maxwell Endowed Chair in Public Health SPH, 140 Warren , Berkeley, CA 94720-7 United States AB: If it ever enters into force the impact of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change is likely to be small. The USA and Australia have not ratified the Protocol and the initial emission reduction target was only 5.2 per cent. There is an increasing call for post-Kyoto climate treaties, whether they be global or regional, to widen the scope to take into account the impacts that air pollutants as tropospheric ozone and aerosols may have on climate. There are two main reasons for this. First and foremost, there is increasing evidence that these air pollutants play an important role in the climate system. Secondly, it is suggested that including radiative forcing components that also have adverse impacts on human health and environment may increase participation, which will be a prerequisite for future treaties to be effective. China's approval of the Kyoto Protocol in 2002 suggests that it is considering a more active role in the global effort to mitigate global warming. Given its many other priorities, however, China needs to understand what national policies would reduce its contribution to global warming in the most cost-efficient way and at the same time contribute the most to economic and social development in the country. The objective of the present study is to contribute knowledge that is helpful to Chinese policy makers dealing with this question. We do this by addressing emissions that according to the World Health Organisation are among the leading health risks to people in the developing world, China included, i.e. smoke from solid fuels burned in peoples' homes. In China, about 72 per cent of the population lives in rural or peri-urban areas where use of simple, low-efficiency household stoves for coal or biomass is common. Even though the residential sector stands for no more than 11 per cent of the primary energy consumption (biomass included), the sector contributes to, e.g., more than 70 per cent of Chinese emissions of black carbon, about a third of its methane emissions, and more than 40 per cent of the nmVOC emissions (which contributes to global warming through tropospheric ozone production). Thus, policies addressing these sources may be important in the context of global warming in addition to substantially improving living conditions for many people. The question we ask in the present paper is how important are they? Two global models are applied to estimate the climate impact on a global scale of emissions from the Chinese residential sector. To estimate the impact on the development of the global climate in terms of radiative forcing and global mean temperature of a possible reduction in these emissions we use a simple climate model. A global, three-dimensional photochemical tracer/transport model of the troposphere is used to model the changes in concentration of air pollutants that have a radiative forcing. Estimates for Chinese household sector emissions are taken from previous work on emission inventories in Asia.
DE: 0305 Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801)
DE: 0345 Pollution--urban and regional (0305)
DE: 1630 Impact phenomena
DE: 6304 Benefit-cost analysis
DE: 9320 Asia
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly