Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Improving Air Quality

Two Interrelated Global Challenges

Larry E. Erickson, Gary Brase

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351116565
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Droit
• Subtopic: Droit de l'environnement

The world's atmosphere is a common resource. Air quality, along with energy, transportation, and climate change have significant impacts on our lives and this book helps readers understand the changes happening at the nexus of these areas, as they relate to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality. Discussing the transitions to electric vehicles, solar and wind energy for electricity generation, battery developments, smart grids and electric power management, and progress in the electrification of agricultural technology, it also provides the latest information in the context of the United Nations sustainable development goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Features:

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• Includes content on how to improve urban air quality in large cities and urban environments.

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• Effectively addresses the nexus of energy, transportation, air quality, climate change and health.

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• Discusses innovative concepts at the nexus of renewable energy, smart grid, electric vehicles, and electric power management.

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• Describes recent progress in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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• Written for a wide audience by world experts in sustainability.

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emission and Improving Air Quality: Two Interrelated Global Challenges, is an invaluable book for professionals and academics at the center of changes relating to solar and wind energy, electric vehicles, and charging infrastructure, including government officials, community leaders, researchers, students, and interested citizens. It is also an excellent text for classes that address sustainability, particularly for those focused on transportation and energy.

1

Introduction

Abstract

The 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, supported by the major countries of the world, sets a global path towards many outcomes. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality are two important goals that have strong support from many people. The efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions address a global climate challenge and will also help to improve air quality overall and particularly in local urban communities. Additionally, there are huge economic benefits associated with these goals, exceeding $3 trillion/year. Several transitions to reach these goals have already started, including increases in wind and solar energy generation and improved storage technologies. This new path includes a number of complex challenges, though, in terms of managing the interactions of electricity generation, the smart grid, energy storage (e.g. in electric vehicles), peak power management, air quality, and health. This book addresses a number of these complex challenges, outlining how they can be dealt with in ways that help to advance the Sustainable Development Goals.

1.1 Introduction

No one likes to walk an unfamiliar path in the dark. The purpose of this book is to shed some light on the still dimly lit path we need to take with regard to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving global air quality. Why do we need to take this new path? Why not continue down the path we are on now? Briefly, the path we are on now – relying on fossil-based fuels (oil, gas, and coal) – is clearly and increasingly a very wrong path. The fossil fuels path will inevitably be a dead end because it rests on non-renewable resources; we will someday run out of oil, then gas, then coal to extract. In the meantime, reliance on oil (e.g. from the Middle East) and gas (e.g. from Russia) continues to create political conflicts and entanglements for many countries. And all the while these fuels generate massive amounts of pollution as they are extracted, refined, and then burned. Finally, these fuels are major contributors to global climate change. The old path is a road to ruin.

But the new path is… new, and that can be scary. Better illumination of this path will help to bring many people along, and the goal of this book is to help provide some of that light.

Like any new direction, there are a number of different aspects to explore. Erickson et al. (2017) spent an entire book looking at just the effects of more electric vehicles, greater solar power infrastructure, and the interactions of these two trends. The current book includes these parts of the new path, but also expands to focus on air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, and the interrelationships between these issues.

The first steps towards this new path were set out by an international accord often referred to as the Paris Agreement (see Chapter 2). On December 12, 2015, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change was adopted by the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 2015). This agreement has a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions until carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere stop increasing (Erickson et al., 2017; UNFCCC, 2015). The Paris Agreement came into force on November 4, 2016 after more than 55 countries that emit more than 55% of greenhouse gases ratified the agreement (Erickson, 2017). In November 2017, the UN Conference of the Parties was held in Bonn, Germany, with many meetings to address implementation issues; however, the significant action is happening in the member countries, where efforts are in progress to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. China is moving forward with actions to increase the installation of solar panels for electricity generation, and sales of electric vehicles are increasing rapidly. In September 2017, plug-in electric and hybrid vehicle sales were about 59,000 in China compared to about 21,000 in the USA and about 123,000 in the world (Bohlsen, 2017; Cole, 2017). In 2017, sales in China exceeded 570,000 vehicles, and at the end of 2017, more than 3 million plug-in vehicles were in service (McCarthy, 2018). A number of major car manufacturers (Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz) have plans to eventually shift all of their new production to electric vehicles.

1.2 Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The Paris Agreement focuses on greenhouse gas emissions for several reasons: They can be defined and measured fairly clearly, and they are at the nexus of the fundamental concerns that motivate the Agreement. The goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 has been proposed and it is considered to be a reasonable objective. Accomplishing that goal, though, will involve an array of short-, medium-, and long-range activities. For example, Erickson et al. (2017) outlined a number of issues related to the electrification of transportation (i.e. adopting electric vehicles), the transition to renewable energy and smart grids, and the need for infrastructure for electric vehicles. These issues are interrelated because the electrical grid is intimately connected to the powering of electric vehicles.

The topics covered by Erickson et al. (2017) were just about these particular parts of this new pathway (electric vehicles, renewable energy, and the electrical grid). There is a much wider view of the situation that this book addresses. This wider view includes the immediate crisis that motivates the focus on greenhouse gas emissions – air pollution – and the longer-term crisis from those same emissions – climate change.

1.3 Air Pollution

Greenhouse gas emissions are a major part of general air pollution. Although air pollution includes many other elements, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions will tend to cut down several other contributors to air pollution as a byproduct. Air pollution is the greatest environmental risk to health (see Chapter 3). In 2012, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution contributed to one out of every nine deaths (WHO, 2016). Combustion emissions, their health effects, and how to reduce emissions are an important part of this book. Air pollution in large cities and metro areas is a global health concern, with social costs of more than $3 trillion every year and more than 3 million people dying prematurely each year because of outdoor air pollution (Lelieveld et al., 2015).

Emissions from transportation and coal-fired electricity generation are major sources of air pollution (including a lot of greenhouse gas emissions). The electrification of transportation (Chapter 4) and the transition to renewable energy for the generation of electricity (Chapters 5–9) thus have two important benefits: Improved air quality and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, the intertwining of these outcomes can help to make sense of some otherwise puzzling behaviors. For example, one of the reasons China is electrifying transportation is because air quality is very poor in many of the larger cities, even as it uses coal power plants to generate a lot of the required electricity. The next step (for China, and for the world) is to shift the electrification of cities to carbon-free energy generation from sources such as wind and solar. Transitions of both electricity generation and the transportation sector will improve air quality greatly (Stewart et al., 2018).

1.4 Climate Change

The other reason to focus on greenhouse gas emissions is that they are a major contributor to global climate change. Climate change is an issue on a much larger scale and a much longer time frame than air pollution, but it also is an even more dire crisis than air pollution. Indeed, the scale of climate change (both in size and time) is such that it makes putting exact numbers on the climate change situation difficult. What we do know is that those numbers are immense and steadily getting even bigger. The global costs of climate change have been increasing because of the increase in concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In 2017, there were wildfires in many midwestern and western parts of the United States, and these cost many billions of dollars. But the greatest costs from climate change in 2017 (in the United States, at least) were because of hurricanes in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico. Rainfall associated with Hurricane Harvey resulted in flooding and damage to property. In Puerto Rico, there was major damage to property, and electrical service was destroyed in many locations. More forest fires in 2018, just in California, have again cost billions of dollars and the loss of many human lives. In 2019, there was flooding in Nebraska that cost billions of dollars and impacted the lives of many people.

1.5 Economics

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and the pace of climate change are all positive things that sound good in principle, but for many people it will have to make financial sense for them to take any action. Economics and prices influence decisions that are made at nearly all levels, from individual decisions (e.g. whether to buy an electric vehicle; Brase, 2018) to international accords. If we think of this as a path – one that we are trying to light more clearly – the economics of the situation (see Chapter 11) de...