Abstract. Anthropogenic aerosols exert a cooling influence that offsets part of the greenhouse gas warming. Due to their short tropospheric lifetime of only up to several days, the aerosol forcing responds quickly to emissions. Here we present and discuss the evolution of the aerosol forcing since 2000. There are multiple lines of evidence that allow to robustly conclude that the anthropogenic aerosol effective radiative forcing – both aerosol-radiation and aerosol-cloud interactions – has become globally less negative, i.e. that the trend in aerosol effective radiative forcing changed sign from negative to positive. Bottom-up inventories show that anthropogenic primary aerosol and aerosol precursor emissions declined in most regions of the world; observations related to aerosol burden show declining trends, in particular of the fine-mode particles that make up most of the anthropogenic aerosols; satellite retrievals of cloud droplet numbers show trends consistent in sign, as do observations of top-of-atmosphere radiation. Climate model results, including a revised set that is constrained by observations of the ocean heat content evolution show a consistent sign and magnitude for a positive forcing relative to 2000 due to reduced aerosol effects. This reduction leads to an acceleration of the forcing of climate change, i.e. an increase in forcing by 0.1 to 0.3 W m-2, up to 12 % of the total climate forcing in 2019 compared to 1750 according to IPCC.
<p>The rapidly rising generation of municipal solid waste jeopardizes the environment and contributes to climate heating. Based on the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, we here develop a global systematic approach for evaluating the potentials to reduce emissions of<br>greenhouse gases and air pollutants from the implementation of circular municipal waste management systems. We contrast two sets of global scenarios until 2050, namely baseline and mitigation scenarios, and show that mitigation strategies in the sustainability-oriented<br>scenario yields earlier, and major, co-benefits compared to scenarios in which inequalities are reduced but that are focused solely on technical solutions. The sustainability-oriented scenario leaves 386 Tg CO2eq/yr of GHG (CH4 and CO2) to be released while air pollutants from<br>open burning can be eliminated, indicating that this source of ambient air pollution can be entirely eradicated before 2050.</p>
The Western Balkans (WB; Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) is a region next to the European Union where the levels of air pollution are among the highest of Europe and transboundary pollution with neighbouring countries is frequent. The estimated PM2.5 average exposure index in the WB is above the exposure concentration obligation (20 µg/m3) of Directive EU/2008/50. In this study, the TM5-FAst Scenario Screening Tool (TM5-FASST) was used to estimate the trends of air quality impacts on health, from 2000 to 2050 in the WB. To that end, five ECLIPSE 6b emission scenarios with different assumptions on population growth, deployment of technologies and policies were compared. Mortality from PM2.5 and ozone were calculated using the integrated exposure-response model (IER) and a log-linear exposure-response function, respectively, in line with the Global Burden of Disease assessment for 2017. The implementation of the maximum feasible reduction (MFR) scenarios in the WB would lead to a decrease in the mortality associated with PM2.5 of 49% - 65% in 2050 compared to the current legislation baseline (CLE). On the contrary, no further control (NFC) scenarios would cause an increase in PM2.5 mortality of 16% - 21% in 2050 compared to the CLE. Furthermore, compared to the CLE baseline in 2050, lack of action would lead to an 11% - 21% increase in mortality in neighbouring countries, due to transboundary pollution originating in the WB region. As a whole, the study confirms that implementing the adopted policies would lead to a reduction of the air pollution impacts in the coming decades and provides estimates of the maximum benefits expected from ambitious policies and the impact of not implementing the currently adopted ones. (* This designation is without prejudice to position on status and is in line with the UNSCR 1244/99 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.)
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