Growing Enthusiasm for Reducing Short-Lived Climate Pollutant for Fast Climate Mitigation

Ministers meet in Doha on margins of UN climate talks

Doha, Qatar 6 December 2012 – 25 Ministers met today in a high-level assembly in a small room on the side of the UNFCCC negotiations in Doha, and along with representatives from UNEP the World Bank, and several NGOs, pledged to increase their scale of action to reduce short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs). Success in reducing SLCPs including black carbon, methane, tropospheric ozone, and HFCs at the global level can cut the rate of global warming in half for the next 40 years and by two-thirds in the Arctic.

The Coalition pledged to keep the spirit and enthusiasm of the founding group, and the speed of action that has been achieved during the first ten months. The Coalition also welcomed six new country partners. Chile, the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, the Maldives, the Netherlands, and the Republic of Korea bring the number of partners in the CCAC to almost 50. The Coalition was originally founded by six countries in February 2012.

“The Coalition’s success will help overcome some the disappointment and despair many here are feeling at the pace of climate protection–despair that we do not have the collective wisdom nor the skill to protect our climate,” said Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD).

Fast-action strategies to reduce SLCPs combined with necessary reductions in carbon dioxide are essential for slowing already accelerating extreme weather events in the near-term, such as the current record-breaking droughts in the South Central United States while maintaining the global temperature at or below 2°C above preindustrial levels through the end of the century. Beyond the 2°C threshold, global temperature increases present the risk of major and perhaps catastrophic climate impacts, including devastating sea-level rise and punishing storm surges, as well as even more severe and frequent droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events. Fast action on black carbon and methane have the potential to slow a global temperature rise by up to 0.5°C by 2050, reduce air pollution-related deaths by as much as 2.4 million, and crop losses by around 30 million tonnes annually.

“Reducing these climate pollutants not only harmonizes development and climate concerns but it is also critical for protecting the world’s most vulnerable regions and people, particularly women and children, from the worst impacts of climate change,” stated Romina Picolotti, former Secretary of Environment and Sustainable Development for Argentina and first NGO representative to the CCAC Steering Committee.

“The Coalition’s success will create more success; success truly breeds success” Zaelke added. “Those gathered in the small room in Doha are creating the sense of urgent optimism the world needs to solve all of the climate change, including the CO₂ part, which all recognize is the largest cause of climate change and essential to aggressively address.”

The UNEP Press Release is here.

IGSD’s Primer on Short-Lived Climate Pollutants is here.

Former President Bill Clinton addresses SLCPs in video remarks at the C40 event at Rio+20 here.

Dangerous feedback loop as existing warming accelerates permafrost thawing

Washington, DC 27 November 2012 – Should permafrost thawing accelerate as expected, resulting carbon dioxide and methane emissions will significantly amplify global warming, according to a report published today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) titled Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost. Permafrost is ground that stays frozen for at least two years in a row and occurs in about a quarter of the land surface in the Northern Hemisphere; it contains twice the amount of carbon as the atmosphere (1,700 billion tonnes of carbon stored as frozen organic matter).

UNEP’s permafrost report recommends that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assess permafrost emissions and establish a national monitoring network and adaptation plans to address the potential impacts of this significant source of greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the report, Arctic and alpine air temperatures are expected to increase at roughly twice the global rate, causing a substantial loss of permafrost by 2100. A global temperature increase of 3°C means a 6°C increase in the Arctic, resulting in an irreversible loss of anywhere between 30 to 85 per cent of near-surface permafrost.

“Reducing black carbon soot and other short-lived climate pollutants can cut the rate of Arctic warming by two-thirds. We need a crash course that starts today with black carbon, which is responsible for half of the Arctic warming, or about 1.0 C” said Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. Other short-lived climate pollutants include methane, which is being released from the thawing permafrost, tropospheric ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs.

Black carbon is targeted by the new Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants, along with the other short-lived climate pollutants. There are currently 27 members of the Coalition including the G8 countries, the European Commission, World Bank, UNEP, the United Nations Development Programme, and several NGOs. UNEP hosts the Secretariat.

“The Climate and Clean Air Coalition is moving fast to reduce climate impacts from the short-lived climate pollutants, as a critical complement to the primary battle to reduce emissions of CO2,” said Zaelke. “But we need both speed and scale to achieve the full potential of the Coalition.”

The UNEP permafrost report is here.

The Coalition web site is here.

Geneva, 12 November 2012 – Global environmental leaders, gathered in Geneva yesterday to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the ozone treaty, consistently identified a phase-down of super greenhouse gases called HFCs as the number one priority of the treaty as it moves forward. The celebration precedes the Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol, where pressure is mounting for adoption of an amendment to phase down HFCs with high global warming potential. This would provide significant climate mitigation – up to 146 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent reductions by 2050—compared to 5 to 10 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent from the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period.

Nobel Laureate Mario Molina urged participants to move forward on a phase-down of HFCs under the Protocol, stating, “If we do it cleverly, we can solve both the ozone and climate problems simultaneously.”

HFCs are factory-made chemicals used in refrigeration, air conditioning, insulating foams, and other uses. HFCs are the fastest growing greenhouse gas in the U.S. and many other countries, due to the growing demand for air conditioning in a warming world and the ongoing phase-out of the current refrigerant, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), under the Montreal Protocol. At the Geneva celebration, NOAA Senior Scientist Dr. A.R. Ravishankara, emphasized the importance of addressing HFC, explaining that otherwise, “HFCs could be as much as 20% of CO2 emissions by 2020.”

The Montreal Protocol is already responsible for the global phase-out of 97% of the consumption and production of nearly 100 ozone-depleting substances and has set the stratospheric ozone layer on the path to mid-century recovery, while also providing critical climate mitigation.

Political momentum for amending the Protocol to address HFCs is steadily growing. 108 parties have signed the Bangkok Declaration calling for low-GWP alternatives to CFCs and HCFCs. And at the Rio+20 meeting in June of this year, more than one hundred heads of State called for the gradual phase-down of HFC production and consumption in the conference declaration, The Future We Want.

The European Commission is already taking concrete policy action on HFCs, issuing a proposal this week to phase down HFCs in the European Union. Climate Commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, encouraged participants to address HFCs and not to “miss the opportunity to close the ambition gap in the climate talks.”

“Phasing down HFCs under the Montreal Protocol—the world’s best environmental treaty—will provide the biggest, fastest, and probably the cheapest climate mitigation available to the world today,” said Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, who attended the seminar.

Dr. Stephen O. Andersen, Director of Research for IGSD, received a special award from the government of the Russian Federation “For his eminent individual contribution to co-operation between the USSR/the Russian Federation and the United States of America in the field of protection of the Earth’s Ozone Layer.” This cooperation included negotiating a successful agreement to launch a U.S. Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) on a Russian Meteor-3 satellite aboard a Russian Cyclone rocket. This was the first flight of a U.S. scientific instrument on a Soviet spacecraft. The TOMS mapped in detail global ozone distribution as well as the Antarctic “ozone hole.” Dr. Andersen also organized international technology cooperation on eliminating the use of ozone-depleting chemicals in aerospace and fire protection applications.

This is the first time this prestigious award has ever been given to someone who is not a Russian citizen.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was one of the original signatories of the Montreal Protocol on September 16, 1987 and one of the counties that ratified the treaty before it entered into force. They provided significant scientific and diplomatic leadership in reaching the original agreement and in strengthening the Montreal Protocol through adjustments and amendments to protect the stratospheric ozone layer and climate.

The Rio+20 conference declaration is here. The European Union f-gas proposal is here.

An Op-Ed on the Montreal Protocol by Mario Molina & Durwood Zaelke is here. The NGO statement on the 25th Anniversary of the Protocol is here.

Additional information on TOMS is here.

Global GDP could drop 3.2 percent

26 September 2012 – Without fast action, accelerating climate change impacts will cause more than 100 million deaths and knock off more than 3% of GDP (gross domestic product) by 2030, according to a report released today by the humanitarian organization DARA.

The report, commissioned by 20 governments in the Climate Vulnerable Forum, calculates the human and economic impact of climate change in 184 countries between 2010 and 2030. It found that nearly 700,000 climate-related deaths already occur today, with almost 80% occurring among children in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The carbon economy is estimated to claim an additional more than 4.5 million lives, primarily from the health impacts of indoor and outdoor air pollution. The combined number of deaths could rise to nearly 6 million annually by 2030 if action is not taken. More than 98% of those deaths will occur in developing countries.

The report concluded, “[T]he worst impacts of climate change … can still be avoided if strong action is taken in the very near future to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that lead to the earth’s warming.” Moving toward to a low-carbon economy would require only 0.5% of GDP over the next ten years, according to the report.

“Reducing short-lived climate pollutants provides the fast mitigation that the world needs to save millions of lives and avoid the worst of the predicted climate impacts,” stated Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. The short-lived climate pollutants include black carbon, tropospheric ozone, methane, and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

“Reducing these pollutants, can cut the rate of warming in half over the next forty years and in the vulnerable Arctic by two thirds, saving millions of lives each year. Existing technologies can be used, and in many cases existing laws and institutions.”

“The first priority should be phasing down HFCs through the Montreal Protocol—the single biggest, fastest, and cheapest mitigation available to the world in the next ten years,” Zaelke added.

The Montreal Protocol is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. It has already phased out nearly 100 similar chemicals by nearly 100%, providing up to 20 times more mitigation than the Kyoto

See also Mario Molina & Durwood Zaelke A Climate Success Story to Build On, an Op-Ed published today in the International Herald Tribune describing the climate success of the Montreal Protocol and fast-action opportunity of phasing-down HFCs.

After Record Low Announced in August

Washington, DC 19 September 2012 – The Arctic sea ice has lost an astonishing 260,000 square miles of protective sea ice, the area of France, in the two weeks since the all-time record low was broken.

On August 26th scientists from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center announced that Arctic sea ice extent had crashed through the previous record low set in 2007 by as much as 27,000 square miles, slightly more than the area of West Virginia. On September 16, as the melting season finally came to a close, more than quarter-million additional square miles of sea ice had melted away.

Arctic sea ice naturally grows during winters and shrinks during the spring and summer. However, for the past thirty years, satellite data has shown a 13% decline per decade of the minimum summer Arctic sea ice. According to passive microwave data analyzed by the National Snow and Ice Data Center and NASA, on September 16 the Arctic reached a new record minimum of 1.32 million square miles, 18% less than the 2007 minimum and nearly 50% less than the 1979 to 2000 average.

“This is a wakeup call for world leaders. Without fast action now, we’ll lose all the Arctic sea ice and its ability to reflect heat back to space. This will set off a feedback loop that accelerates the melting of the permafrost and releases still more climate-warming gases,” said Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. “This feedback loop is pushing us closer to one of the first tipping points that could cause irreversible climate damage.”

The Arctic temperature increase and the decline of snow and ice feed upon themselves in an accelerating feedback loop that is causing more rapid melting and sea level rise. The reflective Arctic ice and snow act as a protective shield, sending solar radiation into space. As the ice and snow disappears it is replaced by darker seawater or land, which absorbs more of the incoming radiation. This absorbed energy is released as heat during the summer months, further adding to Arctic warming, which in turn accelerates melting.

Zaelke added, “Reducing black carbon soot and other short-lived climate pollutants can cut the rate of Arctic warming by two-thirds. We need a crash course that starts today with black carbon, which is responsible for half of the Arctic warming, or about 1.0°C.” Other short-lived climate pollutants include methane, which is being released from the thawing permafrost, and hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs.

Scientists last year predicted that the Arctic could be free of summer sea ice in the next thirty to forty years and sea-levels could rise up to five feet by the end of the century with melting snow and ice in the Arctic making a significant contribution. Other scientists now say this could happen much faster, perhaps by the end of the decade.

“In addition to a crash course to cut black carbon in the Arctic,” Zaelke said. “We also need to phase down HFCs through the Montreal Protocol, which is one of the biggest, fastest and cheapest ways to mitigate climate change.” The Montreal Protocol is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and its success healing the ozone layer and helping protect the climate system by providing

Other efforts to reduce short-lived climate pollutants are underway in the new Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants, launched by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this year. There are now 27 members of the Coalition. IGSD sits on the Steering Committee of the Coalition as the representative of nongovernmental organizations.

According to a recent UNEP/WMO report, full implementation of a package of sixteen emission reduction measures targeting black carbon and ozone precursors, including methane, can cut the rate of warming in the Arctic by two-thirds and the rate of global warming by half for the next 30 to 60 years.

Montreal Protocol saved ozone layer and reduced climate threat

Washington, DC 14 September 2012 – The world’s most successful environmental treaty turns 25 this week on September 16th. The treaty is the Montreal Protocol and its success has avoided one of the most severe global environmental threats the world has ever faced—the destruction of the stratospheric ozone by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

“The Montreal Protocol has phased out nearly 100 kinds of CFCs and related fluorinated gases by 98%, an astonishing record by any measure,” stated Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. “The treaty’s success has put the ozone layer on the path to recovery by 2065 and avoided millions of deaths from skin cancer and trillions of dollars in health costs.”

At the same time, because the CFCs and other chemicals that destroy the ozone layer also cause global warming, the Montreal Protocol has provided nearly 20 times more in climate mitigation than the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty has done in its first commitment period.

“Including the earlier consumer boycotts of CFC-filled spray cans and the early national laws in the US and Europe to cut these chemicals, the combined efforts to address CFCs and related chemicals has solved a part of the climate problem that otherwise would be as big as the part caused by carbon dioxide today. (Carbon dioxide causes more than half of the warming.) Put another way, the global temperature above pre-Industrial average would be 50% again as high as it is today.”

“The Montreal Protocol is successful because it has universal membership of all UN countries. And it has universal membership because all countries consider the treaty to be fair,” Zaelke noted. “They consider it fair because it fully implements the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibility,’ by providing that the developed countries that first used CFCs start their phase outs first, followed by a grace period of ten years, before the developing countries have to start.”

Developed countries also provide a dedicated funding mechanism to pay the full, agreed incremental costs to the developing countries for making the transition out of the banned chemicals. There also is funding to pay for national ozone officers in all 147 developing countries, and to provide for regular training. “These boots on the ground have make a tremendous contribution to the treaty’s success,” added Zaelke.

Today a coalition of developing and developed countries are proposing to amend the treaty to phase down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) that have high global warming potential. A group of 108 countries are now supporting this, although India and China are not yet on board.

“The reluctance of these China and India is blocking the world’s single biggest and fastest bite out of the climate problem,” added Zaelke. “Both China and India have always joined the Montreal Protocol consensus over the past 25 years, and we fully expect that they will join the consensus to phase down HFCs as well. They don’t want to be blamed for increasing the near-term climate impacts that the Montreal Protocol can avoid.”

“Phasing down HFCs now is especially important,” Zaelke continued, “because the climate treaty is on a deliberate schedule, aiming for an agreement by 2015 on new mandatory commitments in a treaty that would go into effect by 2020. This is too late to avoid the catastrophic impacts that are getting closer each day, including the continuing loss of Arctic sea ice, which hit a record low this month.”

Washington, DC 14 September 2012 – Glaciers in the east and central regions of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region are retreating at an alarming rate according to a new report released this week by the National Research Council. While the glaciers in the western HKH appear to be stable and possibly growing, glaciers over the rest of the HKH are melting at rates similar to the collapsing glaciers in much of the rest of the world.

Warming is particularly acute at higher elevations of the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau, which over the past fifty years have warmed at three times the global average.

The report, which analyzes current scientific knowledge about the glaciers in the HKH region and impacts on water resources, notes that glacier melt provides needed water during extreme weather events such as droughts, acting as a ‘buffer’ when water needs are more desperate, although it found that the melt is not likely to significantly impact water resources in the near-term at low elevations where rains and snow-melt are more important. The glaciers are the headwaters for rivers that provide fresh water and irrigation for as many as 1.5 billion people in Asia.

“The number of disastrous droughts and extreme temperature events in Asia have more than doubled over the past twenty years and they are only expected to increase as climate change gets worse,” stated Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. “This report underscores the need to take fast action to protect this critical region including rapid reductions of short-lived climate pollutants particularly black carbon.”

The report cautions that the causes for glacier melt are complex but are driven in large part by rising temperatures. Aerosols such as black carbon and desert dust are also significant contributors to warming in the region.

Another recent report on black carbon in the Brahmaputra River Valley, southeast of the Tibetan Plateau, found that the exceptionally high concentrations of black carbon in the area contributed to the extreme regional climate change, including increased surface temperature and changing precipitation patterns. Black carbon may be responsible for up to 1°C of warming in the HKH region.

Cutting black carbon in addition to other short-lived climate pollutants such as methane, tropospheric ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) can reduce the current rate of global warming by almost half, the rate of warming in the Arctic by two-thirds, and the HKH region by half for the next 30 or more years while avoiding up to 4.7 million premature deaths each year from outdoor air pollution and up to 1.6 million a year from indoor pollution.

Black carbon is targeted by the new Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants, along with HFC and methane. There are currently 27 members of the Coalition including the G8 countries, the European Commission, World Bank, and the United Nations Environment Programme, which will host the Secretariat.

“The Climate and Clean Air Coalition may be the only way to reduce climate impacts in the near term, and is a critical complement to the primary battle to reduce emissions of CO2,” said Zaelke. “We need to take fast-action.”

The NRC Report can be found here. The CCAC website is here.

Reducing black carbon and other short-lived climate pollutants key to slowing Arctic warming

Washington, DC 28 August 2012 – Arctic sea ice has hit record lows with weeks still to go in the melt season, an indication of accelerating global warming. Arctic sea ice has reached the lowest level ever observed in the three decades since polar cap observations began, according to scientists from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

“The Arctic is already warming at twice the global average, and the loss of sea ice and its ability to reflect heat back to space is now starting to melt the permafrost, which is releasing still more climate-warming gases,”, said Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. “This feedback loop is pushing us closer to one of the first tipping points that could cause irreversible climate damage.”

Zaelke added, “Reducing black carbon soot and other short-lived climate pollutants can cut the rate of Arctic warming by two-thirds. We need a crash course that starts today with black carbon, which is responsible for half of the Arctic warming, or about 1.0C.” Other short-lived climate pollutants include methane, which is being released from the thawing permafrost, and hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs.

Scientists last year predicted that the Arctic could be free of summer sea ice in the next thirty to forty years and sea-levels could rise up to 5 feet by the end of the century with melting snow and ice in the Arctic making a significant contribution.

“In addition to a crash course to cut black carbon in the Arctic,” Zaelke said that “we also need to phase down HFCs through the Montreal Protocol, which is one of the biggest and fastest and cheapest ways to mitigate climate change.”

Other efforts to reduce short-lived climate pollutants are underway in new Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants, launched by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this year. There are now 27 members of the Coalition. IGSD sits on the Steering Committee of the Coalition as the representative of nongovernmental organizations.

According to a recent UNEP/WMO report, full implementation of a package of sixteen emission reduction measures targeting black carbon and ozone precursors, including methane, can cut the rate of warming in the Arctic by two-thirds and the rate of global warming by half for the next 30 to 60 years.

IGSD Press Release “Dramatic Sea Level Rise Expected From Faster Melting of Arctic Snow and Ice” (6 May 2011) is here.

Washington DC, 27 August 2012 – The Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, long a champion of efforts to reduce HFCs, black carbon, methane, and tropospheric ozone, has joined the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC). The Institute has been elected to serve as the NGO representative on the Coalition’s Steering Committee, while UNEP will represent Inter- Governmental Organizations.

“The Coalition has the potential to be the catalyst for cutting the rate of climate change in half for the next 30 to 40 years, while saving millions of lives a year and preventing significant crop losses,” said Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD). “IGSD is fully committed to helping the Coalition achieve these planet-saving goals.”

For the past several years, IGSD has been spearheading national, regional, and international strategies to reduce short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs), as part of a suite of fast-action strategies that can be started in the next two to three years, be substantially implemented in ten years, and produce a response in the climate system on a timescale of decades, using existing legal and institutional mechanisms whenever feasible.

IGSD’s strategies are described in a paper co-authored with Nobel Laureate Mario Molina in the PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, Molina M., Zaelke D., Sarma K.M., Andersen S.O.,

Ramanathan V., Reducing abrupt climate change risk using the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions (2009).

Fast-action strategies to reduce SLCPs combined with necessary reductions in carbon dioxide are essential for slowing already accelerating extreme weather events in the near-term, such as the current record-breaking droughts in the South Central United States, while maintaining global temperature at or below 2°C above pre- industrial levels through the end of the century. Beyond the 2°C threshold, global temperature increases present the risk of major and perhaps catastrophic climate impacts, including devastating sea-level rise and punishing storm surges, as well as even more severe and frequent droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events.

“Reducing these climate pollutants not only harmonizes development and climate concerns but it is also critical for protecting the world’s most vulnerable regions and people, particularly women and children, from the worst impacts of climate change,” stated Romina Picolotti, former Secretary of Environment and Sustainable Development for Argentina and first NGO representative to the CCAC Steering Committee. “This ground-breaking coalition has the potential to catalyze fast action to help the people who need it the most, and IGSD is honored to represent the NGOs partners in this endeavor.”

The Coalition’s Secretariat is housed by UNEP in its Paris office and supported by initial funding from the US, Canada, Sweden and Norway. The World Bank calculates that they already have $12 billion in their existing portfolio contributing to the Coalition’s goals, and the G8 leaders in May commissioned the Bank to prepare a report on ways to integrate reductions of these short-lived climate pollutants into their activities and to assess funding options for methane reduction. The Coalition has approved five initial fast-action initiatives: reducing methane from urban landfills; reducing emissions from brick kilns; reducing black carbon emissions from heavy duty diesel vehicles and engines; promoting alternatives to HFCs; and reducing emissions from the oil and gas industry.

Climate & Clean Air Coalition’s web site is here.

Increase in storm intensity and frequency could further damage of the ozone layer over U.S.

Washington DC, 1 August 2012 – “A warming world with violent storms holds many unpleasant surprises” said Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD). “Recent research now suggests that this may include damage to the protective ozone shield, which protects us from harmful ultraviolet radiation that causes skin cancer, cataracts, suppresses the human immune system, and damages crops and ecosystems.”

“Protecting the stratospheric ozone layer is a job that the Montreal Protocol has done for the last 25 years, putting the ozone layer on a course of recovery by mid-century,” Zaelke continued.

The new challenge is the surprise finding in a recently published Harvard University study that increasing climate-driven summer thunderstorms might inject more water into the stratosphere, which has the potential to damage the protective ozone layer over the United States and possibly other parts of the globe. This study is one of the first to hypothesize that climate change could reduce stratospheric ozone over populated areas. If they prove correct, depletion of the ozone layer will increase if global warming leads to more such storms.

In the stratosphere when temperatures are very low, increasing water vapor releases chlorine residing in inactive forms, mimicking processes that cause the ‘ozone hole’ over Antarctica. While ozone depletion from storms in midlatitude regions like the US has not been reported so far, the study concludes that if the intensity and frequency of the convective injecting storms were to increase as a result of climate change, increased risk of ozone depletion and associated increases in ultraviolet exposure could follow. To confirm and quantify the risk, more detailed modeling of storms and the response of ozone to water vapor injections in the stratosphere is needed.

“The most surprising aspect is that this potential impact of climate on stratospheric ozone was not anticipated,” stated Stephen O. Andersen, Director of Research at IGSD. “This new research brings back into play the ‘precautionary principal’ of global environmental protection that justifies action before the science is resolved if delay would make solutions too expensive or too late to protect the earth for future generations.

Taking fast action to reduce short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) including black carbon, methane, tropospheric ozone and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), is a critical climate strategy which can reduce the possibility that severe storms will inject more water vapor into the stratosphere. Reducing SLCPs could cut the rate of global warming in half for the next several decades, cut the rate of warming over the elevated regions of the Himalayas and Tibet by at least half, and the rate of warming in the Arctic by two-thirds over the next 30 years. Since many SLCPs are also potent air pollutants cutting them can also prevent up to 4.7 million premature deaths each year and prevent billions of dollars in crop losses.

“The possibility of significant ozone depletion over North America is only the newest in a litany of accelerating impacts of climate change,” stated Durwood Zaelke, President of IGSD. “We cannot afford to wait to take fast-action.”

The Harvard report is here: J.G. Anderson et al., UV Dosage Levels in Summer: Increased Risk of Ozone Loss from Convectively Injected Water Vapor, SCIENCE (26 July 2012).