Download Free The Economic Benefits Of Air Quality Improvements In Arctic Council Countries Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online The Economic Benefits Of Air Quality Improvements In Arctic Council Countries and write the review.

The Arctic is a vital region that helps preserve the balance of the global climate. The Arctic environment is particularly sensitive to short-lived climate pollutants, including black carbon, due to their strong warming effect.
The Arctic is a vital region that helps preserve the balance of the global climate. The Arctic environment is particularly sensitive to short-lived climate pollutants, such as black carbon, which is the most light-absorbing component of particulate matter. Ambitious policy action to reduce air pollution would therefore reduce the negative environmental, health and economic impacts of air pollution, while slowing down climate change by reducing emissions of short-lived climate pollutants.Due to their proximity to the Arctic region, a central role in reducing air pollution in the Arctic is played by Arctic Council countries, namely Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden, and the United States. Arctic Council countries have affirmed their support to collectively bring black carbon emissions down by 25-33% by 2025 from 2013 levels. Ambitious policy action to reduce air pollution in Arctic Council countries would help achieve this target.This paper presents a quantitative assessment of the environmental, health and economic consequences of ambitious policy action to reduce air pollution in Arctic Council countries. The scenario analysis is based on a suite of modelling tools to project the impacts of increasingly ambitious policies up to 2050. The paper compares a business-as-usual scenario with policy scenarios in which Arctic Council countries, and other regional groupings, adopt the best available techniques to reduce air pollutant emissions, including end-of-pipe technologies, the use of cleaner fuels, and measures to reduce emissions in the agricultural sector.The modelling shows that these policies could substantially curb emissions of several air pollutants, including bringing black carbon emissions well below the collective target. The benefits would include better air quality, and reductions in air pollution-related premature deaths and illnesses. The costs of achieving the emission reductions would be offset by the economic benefits resulting from improved human and environmental health.
This report quantifies the environmental, health and economic consequences of policy action on air pollution in Arctic Council countries, with a focus on sectoral differences. The report takes a modelling approach and compares a baseline scenario that reflects current legislation, with a policy scenario in which the best available techniques to reduce emissions are deployed in all emitting sectors. The report highlights that benefits from air quality improvements can be obtained when considering emission reductions throughout the economy, and not just in the sectors that are targeted more often, such as industry and transport. The results presented in the report also highlight the need for country-specific policy strategies that take into account the current levels of policy stringency, the sectoral contributions to air pollution, and the need for sectoral investment in new technologies, which also vary by country.
This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the economic consequences of outdoor air pollution in the coming decades, focusing on the impacts on mortality, morbidity, and changes in crop yields as caused by high concentrations of pollutants.
Arctic atmospheric pollution is now a major international issue. This volume presents the most authoritative review of this increasingly important subject for an audience of both scientists and administrators concerned with worldwide, as well as polar, pollution problems. Arctic Air Pollution is an edited collection of papers, first presented at a conference helo as the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge in 1985. Building on foundations established at earlier meetings, this volume examines the problem of Arctic air pollution in an integrated, multidisciplinary fashion, with contributions from leading authorities in chemistry, ecology, climatology and epidemiology. To chemists, physicists and climatologists, it presents scientific problems. Ecologists are concerned with environmental threats; medical researchers with potential threats to human health. International lawyers and administrators are concerned with the legal implications of pollutants transferred across continents. Overall hangs the major question; can man-made pollution affect the delicate energy balance of the Arctic, and precipitate major climatic change worldwide?
Outdoor air pollution kills more than 3 million people across the world every year, and causes health problems from asthma to heart disease for many more. This is costing societies very large amounts in terms of the value of lives lost and ill health. Based on extensive new epidemiological evidence since the 2010 Global Burden of Disease study, and OECD estimates of the Value of Statistical Life, this report provides evidence on the health impacts from air pollution and the related economic costs.
The Arctic has become a global arena. This development can only be comprehensively understood from a transdisciplinary perspective encompassing ecological, cultural, societal, economic, industrial, geopolitical, and security considerations. This book offers thorough explanations of Arctic developments and challenges. Global warming is in large part the driving force behind the transformation of the Arctic by making access possible to the areas previously out of reach for mining and shipping. An all-year ice-free Arctic Ocean, a reality possible as soon as perhaps 2030, creates a new dynamic in the North. The retreating ice edge enables the exploitation of previously inaccessible resources such as hydrocarbon deposits and rare metals, as well as the shortest sea route from Asia to Europe. Consequently, the Northern Sea Route (NSR) promises faster and cheaper shipping. Russia, along side foreign investment, especially from China, is financing the needed infrastructure. A warming Arctic, however, also has negative impacts. The Arctic is home to fragile ecosystems that are already showing signs of deteriorating. The Arctic has seen unprecedented wildfires, which, together with the release of trapped methane from the disappearing permafrost, will, in turn, accelerate global warming. A warmer Arctic Ocean will also negatively impact fisheries. Couple this with other global changes, such as ocean acidification and modified ocean currents, and the global outlook is bleak. Additionally, the security situation in the Arctic is worsening. After the 2014 Ukraine crisis, the West imposed sanctions on the Russian Federation, which have revived the divisions of the Cold War. The reemergence of these postures is threatening the highly successful Barents Cooperation and other initiatives for peace in the circumpolar North. This book offers new insights and presents arguments for how to mitigate the challenges the Arctic is facing today.
While plastics are extremely useful materials for modern society, plastics production and waste generation continue to increase with worsening environmental impacts despite international, national and local policy responses, as well as industry commitments. The first of two reports, this Outlook intends to inform and support policy efforts to combat plastic leakage.