The latest science, described in the World Bank report “Turn
Down the Heat,” indicates that we are heading toward a 4° C
warmer world, with catastrophic consequences in this century.
While carbon dioxide (CO2) is still the No. 1 threat, there is
another category of warming agent called short-lived climate
pollutants (SLCPs). Mitigating these pollutants is a must if we
want to avoid the 4° C warmer future. The main SLCPs are black
carbon, methane, tropospheric ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons.
They are potentially responsible for more than one-third of the
current warming. Because SLCPs have a much shorter lifetime in
the air than CO2; reducing their emissions can create almost
immediate reduction of global/regional warming, which is not
possible by reducing CO2 emissions alone. According to one U.N.
report, full implementation of 16 identified measures to
mitigate SLCPs would reduce future global warming by about
0.5˚C. In this blog, we will focus on one SLCP – black carbon.
Black carbon is a primary component o