Zbigniew Klimont

• International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

Several EU climate change mitigation policies have the potential to deliver health co-benefits. However, existing frameworks guiding research in this area lack important details that are needed to understand how evidence of health co-benefits can be used to support the ambition and acceptability of EU climate policy. In this Personal View, we propo...

Aerosol particles are an important part of the Earth climate system, and their concentrations are spatially and temporally heterogeneous, as well as being variable in size and composition. Particles can interact with incoming solar radiation and outgoing longwave radiation, change cloud properties, affect photochemistry, impact surface air quality,...

Air pollutants are primarily transported from midlatitude emission regions in winter and early spring, leading to elevated concentrations of aerosols, including black carbon (BC), in the Arctic, a phenomenon known as Arctic haze. The Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with chemistry is used to investigate potential causes of uncertainti...

Research has yielded increasingly robust estimates of the co-benefits from mitigating climate change while reducing air pollution, improving health, and meeting other development needs. Though quantifying these often hidden benefits could ease cost concerns and lower technological constraints for development-friendly climate solutions, achieving co...

This study, performed under the umbrella of the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (TF-HTAP), responds to the need of the global and regional atmospheric modelling community of having a mosaic emission inventory of air pollutants that conforms to specific requirements: global coverage, long time series, spatially distributed emiss...

Air pollution poses a critical environmental challenge to sustainability, environmental health and public well-being in the South Asia Region (SAR). This study identifies hotspots of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) across SAR, analyzing both concentration levels and exposure. Moreover, it aims at a comprehensive understanding of the various sources...

The impacts of future methane (CH4) and other precursor emission changes are investigated for surface ozone (O3) in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) region excluding North America and Israel (the EMEP region, for European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme) for the year 2050. The analysis includes a current legislation (CL...

Aerosol particles are an important part of the Earth system, but their concentrations are spatially and temporally heterogeneous, as well as variable in size and composition. Particles can interact with incoming solar radiation and outgoing long wave radiation, change cloud properties, affect photochemistry, impact surface air quality, change the s...

The Indian agriculture sector is driven by small and marginal farmers and employs two-thirds of the Indian work force. Agriculture also accounts for around a quarter of the total greenhouse gas emissions, mainly in the form of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). Hence, agriculture is an important sector for India’s transition to net-zero emissio...

The impacts of future methane (CH4) and other precursor emission changes are investigated for surface ozone (O3) in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) region excluding North America and Israel (the "EMEP region", for European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme) for the year 2050. The analysis includes a Current Legislation (...

https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/19640/1/Brito_Poster_EGU_2024_v5.pdf Presented by Thiago Brito

This study aimed to create Greenhouse Gas - Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS)-Korea, an integrated model for evaluating climate and air quality policies in Korea, modeled after the international GAINS model. GAINS-Korea incorporates specific Korean data and enhances granularity for enabling local government-level analysis. The model...

Ammonia has been proposed to replace heavy fuel oil in the shipping industry by 2050. When produced with low-carbon electricity, ammonia can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, ammonia emissions also contribute to local air pollution via the formation of secondary particulate matter. We estimate the potential ammonia emissions from storage an...

This study, performed under the umbrella of the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (TF-HTAP), responds to the global and regional atmospheric modelling community's need of a mosaic emission inventory of air pollutants that conforms to specific requirements: global coverage, long time series, spatially distributed emissions with hi...

This study focuses on implications of differences between recent global emissions inventories for simulated trends in anthropogenic aerosol abundances and radiative forcing (RF) over the 1990–2019 period. We use the ECLIPSE version 6 (ECLv6) and CEDS year 2021 release (CEDS21) as input to the chemical transport model OsloCTM3 and compare the result...

This study, performed under the umbrella of the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (TF-HTAP), responds to the need of the global and regional atmospheric modelling community of having a mosaic emission inventory of air pollutants that conforms to specific requirements: global coverage, long time series, spatially distributed emiss...

This study focuses on implications of differences between recent global emissions inventories for simulated trends in anthropogenic aerosol abundances and radiative forcing (RF) over the 1990–2019 period. We use the ECLIPSE version 6 (ECLv6) and Community Emission Data System year 2021 release (CEDS21) as input to the chemical transport model OsloC...

A tighter integration of modeling frameworks for climate and air quality is urgently needed to assess the impacts of clean air policies on future Arctic and global climate. We combined a new model emulator and comprehensive emissions scenarios for air pollutants and greenhouse gases to assess climate and human health co-benefits of emissions reduct...

The Western Balkans (WB) is a region in South-East Europe where the alignment of national legislations and policies with those of the European Union (EU) is in progress with the prospect of achieving the EU membership. Such process is crucial for air quality management considering that the levels of air pollution in this area are among the highest...

Anthropogenic aerosols exert a cooling influence that offsets part of the greenhouse gas warming. Due to their short tropospheric lifetime of only 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 us to robust...

City clusters play an important role in air pollutant and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction in China, primarily due to their high fossil energy consumption levels. The “2 + 26” Cities, i.e., Beijing, Tianjin and 26 other perfectures in northern China, has experienced serious air pollution in recent years. We employ the Greenhouse Gas and Air...

This chapter discusses the links between aerosol as a pollutant and as a climate forcer, and how future changes in aerosol will be affected by policies in both spheres. The chapter starts with some historical background. It then describes how aerosol particles impact human health and the environment and the regulations that exist to limit these eff...

Split air conditioners (ACs) are the most used appliance for space cooling worldwide. The phase-down of refrigerants with high global warming potential (GWP) prescribed by the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol has triggered a major effort to find less harmful alternative refrigerants. HFC-32 is currently the most common refrigerant to repla...

Beijing has implemented air pollution control policies and transitioned its energy system with lower carbon emissions to tackle severe air pollution. However, further advancing to a carbon–neutral future necessitates comprehensive measures far beyond the air-quality-oriented policies. This study aims to explore and compare different transition stra...

This study aims to develop emission inventory and emission spatial distribution of NOX, CO, PM2.5, PM10, NMVOC, BC, and SO2 from anthropogenic sources in Jakarta from 2015 to 2030, using 2015 as a baseline year. The results from this study can be very important to improve the emission data for Jakarta and contribute to the global emission model. Em...

Air pollution exposure is a leading public health problem in China. Despite recent air quality improvements, fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) exposure remains large, the associated disease burden is substantial, and population ageing is projected to increase the susceptibility to disease. Here, we used emulators of a regional chemical transport mo...

While carbon dioxide is the main cause for global warming, modeling short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) such as methane, ozone, and particles in the Arctic allows us to simulate near-term climate and health impacts for a sensitive, pristine region that is warming at 3 times the global rate. Atmospheric modeling is critical for understanding the lon...

Hydrofluorocarbon emissions have increased rapidly and are managed by the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. Yet the current ambition is not consistent with the 1.5 °C Paris Agreement goal. Here, we draw on the Montreal Protocol start-and-strengthen approach to show that accelerated phase-down under the Kigali Amendment could result in addi...

A shift from fossil fuel to renewable energy is crucial in limiting global temperature increase to 2 °C above preindustrial levels. However, renewable energy technologies, solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, and electric vehicles are metal-intensive, and the mining and smelting processes to obtain the needed metals are emission-intensive. We estima...

Global trends in tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) have changed dramatically in the past decade. Here, we investigate tropospheric NO2 variabilities over United States, Europe, and E. China in 2005–2018 to explore the mechanisms governing the variation of this critical pollutant. We found large uncertainties in the trends of anthropogenic nitroge...

Worldwide efforts to switch away from coal have increased the reliance on natural gas imports for countries with inadequate domestic production. In preparing for potential gas import disruptions, there have been limited attempts to quantify the environmental and human health impacts of different options and incorporate them into decision-making. He...

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 greenhouse gases and air pollutants from the implementation of circular municipal waste m...

Emissions of black carbon (BC) particles from anthropogenic and natural sources contribute to climate change and human health impacts. Therefore, they need to be accurately quantified to develop an effective mitigation strategy. Although the spread of the emission flux estimates for China have recently narrowed under the constraints of atmospheric...

The Arctic atmosphere is warming rapidly and its relatively pristine environment is sensitive to the long-range transport of atmospheric pollutants. While carbon dioxide is the main cause for global warming, short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) such as methane, ozone, and particles also play a role in Arctic climate on near-term time scales. Atmosph...

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 exp...

We assess that full global compliance with the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol will not provide emission reductions consistent with the 1.5 o C target of the Paris Agreement. Following the Montreal Protocol’s start-and-strengthen approach to refrigerant management, fast-tracking hydrofluorocarbon phase-down under the Kigali Amendment woul...

In recent years, the pan-Arctic region has experienced increasingly extreme fire seasons. Fires in the northern high latitudes are driven by current and future climate change, lightning, fuel conditions, and human activity. In this context, conceptualizing and parameterizing current and future Arctic fire regimes will be important for fire and land...

The Arctic is warming 2 to 3 times faster than the global average, partly due to changes in short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) including aerosols. In order to study the effects of atmospheric aerosols in this warming, recent past (1990–2014) and future (2015–2050) simulations have been carried out using the GISS-E2.1 Earth system model to study th...

Recent trajectories of production and consumption patterns have resulted in massively rising quantities of municipal solid waste (MSW). Building on the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, we build two sets of global scenarios until 2050, namely baseline and mitigation scenarios. We assess trajectories of future MSW generation and the impact of MSW manag...

Significance Microplastic particles and fibers generated from the breakdown of mismanaged waste are now so prevalent that they cycle through the earth in a manner akin to global biogeochemical cycles. In modeling the atmospheric limb of the plastic cycle, we show that most atmospheric plastics are derived from the legacy production of plastics from...

In recent years, the Pan-Arctic region has experienced increasingly extreme fire seasons. Fires in the northern high latitudes are driven by current and future climate change, lightning, fuel conditions, and human activity. In this context, conceptualizing and parameterizing current and future Arctic fire regimes will be important for fire and land...

Low-carbon pathways consistent with the 2 °C and 1.5 °C long-term climate goals defined in the Paris Agreement are likely to induce substantial co-benefits for air pollution and associated health impacts. In this analysis, using five global integrated assessment models, we quantify the emission reductions in key air pollutants resulting from the de...

Gas flaring in the oil and gas industry has been identified as an important source of anthropogenic black carbon (BC) affecting the climate, particularly in the Arctic. Our study provides, for the first time, spatially-explicit estimates of BC emissions from flaring in Russia utilising state-of-the-art methodology for determining the emission facto...

Despite significant reductions in nitrogen emissions achieved in Europe during the last three decades, eutrophication remains an environmental concern in the Baltic Sea basin. Recently, a number of comprehensive modelling studies have been conducted for the HELCOM Commission to inform the 2021 update of the Baltic Sea Action Plan. The calculations...

The Arctic is warming two to three times faster than the global average, partly due to changes in short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) including aerosols. In order to study the effects of atmospheric aerosols in this warming, recent past (1990–2014) and future (2015–2050) simulations have been carried out using the GISS-E2.1 Earth system model to st...

The Energy Modeling Forum inter-comparison study on short-lived climate forcers (EMF-30) focuses on black carbon (BC) and methane (CH4), two of the most important warming SLCFs. The study is aimed at quantifying the potential impact of methane and BC-focused reductions on climate change and at comparing the impact of idealized SLCF reductions as co...

Several studies have shown that the greenhouse gas reduction resulting from the current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) will not be enough to meet the overall targets of the Paris Climate Agreement. It has been suggested that more ambition mitigations of short-lived climate forcer (SLCF) emissions could potentially be a way to reduce the...

Mitigation of black carbon (BC) aerosol emissions can potentially contribute to both reducing air pollution and climate change, although mixed results have been reported regarding the latter. A detailed quantification of the synergy between global air quality and climate policy is still lacking. This study contributes with an integrated assessment...

The relatively short atmospheric lifetimes of methane (CH 4) and black carbon (BC) have focused attention on the potential for reducing anthropogenic climate change by reducing Short-Lived Climate Forcer (SLCF) emissions. This paper examines radiative forcing and global mean temperature results from the Energy Modeling Forum (EMF)-30 multi-model su...

Although importance of co-control of SLCPs together with the emission reduction of CO 2 has attracted much attention for the mid-term climate change mitigation, the contribution to radiative forcing (RF) is rather complex, and chemistry-climate model analysis for the future scenario tends to give a “black box” for the contribution of each species....

In March 2020 MSC-W hosted an expert workshop on condensable organic compounds (funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers, NMR), which brought together experts in emissions, measurements, emission inventories, atmospheric chemistry, air quality models and policy from Europe and North America, to create a much better understanding of the issues and...

Mitigation of non-CO2 emissions plays a key role in meeting the Paris Agreement ambitions and sustainable development goals. Implementation of respective policies addressing these targets mainly occur at sectoral and regional levels, and designing efficient mitigation strategies therefore relies on detailed knowledge about the mix of emissions from...

This study seeks to estimate how global supply chain relocates emissions of tropospheric ozone precursors and its impacts in shaping ozone formation. Here we show that goods produced in China for foreign markets lead to an increase of domestic non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) emissions by 3.5 million tons in 2013; about 13% of the na...

Over the last decades, energy and pollution control policies combined with structural changes in the economy decoupled emission trends from economic growth, increasingly also in the developing world. It is found that effective implementation of the presently decided national pollution control regulations should allow further economic growth without...

Air pollution has been recognized as a threat to human health since the time of Hippocrates, ca 400 BC. Successive written accounts of air pollution occur in different countries through the following two millennia until measurements, from the eighteenth century onwards, show the growing scale of poor air quality in urban centres and close to indust...

The government of Indonesia has pledged to meet ambitious greenhouse gas mitigation goals in its Nationally Determined Contribution as well as reduce water pollution through its water management policies. A set of technologies could conceivably help achieving these goals simultaneously. However, the installation and widespread application of these...

Over the last decades, the European Union has established strict air quality objectives, together with a comprehensive legal framework that should facilitate the achievements of these objectives. As a consequence, air quality has drastically improved in Europe, although the long-term objectives are still not met. The EU clean air legislation played...

Atmospheric supply of iron can modulate ocean biogeochemistry, due to its key role in global nitrogen and carbon cycles. Current estimates predict up to 20% of global ocean net primary productivity depends on an atmospheric iron source. Using a technology‐based methodology, we revise total and soluble anthropogenic iron emissions and resolve iron i...

In recent years, marine, freshwater and terrestrial pollution with microplastics has been discussed extensively, whereas atmospheric microplastic transport has been largely overlooked. Here, we present global simulations of atmospheric transport of microplastic particles produced by road traffic (TWPs – tire wear particles and BWPs – brake wear par...

A long-term, robust observational record of atmospheric black carbon (BC) concentrations at Fukue Island for 2009–2019 was produced by unifying the data from a continuous soot monitoring system (COSMOS) and a Multi-Angle Absorption Photometer (MAAP). This record was then used to analyze emission trends from China. We identified a rapid reduction in...

The changing composition of the atmosphere, driven by anthropogenic emissions, is the cause of anthropogenic climate change as well as deteriorating air quality. Emission inventories are essential to understand the contribution of various human activities, model and predict the changing atmospheric composition, and design cost-effective mitigation...

Although importance of co-control of SLCFs together with the emission reduction of CO 2 has attracted much attention for the mid-term climate change mitigation, their contribution to radiative forcing (RF) are rather complex, and chemical-climate model analysis for the future scenario tends to give black box for the contribution of each species. In...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

In recent years, marine, freshwater and terrestrial pollution with microplastics has been discussed extensively, whereas atmospheric microplastic transport has been largely overlooked. Here, we present the first global simulation of atmospheric transport of microplastic particles produced by road traffic (TWPs – tire wear particles and BWPs – brake...

Abstract. Mitigation of non-CO₂ emissions plays a key role in meeting the Paris Agreement ambitions and Sustainable Development Goals. Implementation of respective policies addressing these targets mainly occur at sectoral and regional levels and designing efficient mitigation strategies therefore relies on detailed knowledge about the m...

Abstract. Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide contributing to human-made global warming. Keeping to the Paris Agreement of staying well below two degrees warming will require a concerted effort to curb methane emissions in addition to necessary decarbonization of the energy systems. The fastest way to achieve em...

Spatially distributed anthropogenic and open burning emissions are fundamental data needed by Earth system models. We describe the methods used for generating gridded datasets produced for use by the modeling community, particularly for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6. The development of three sets of gridded data for historical o...

Abstract. A long-term, robust observational record of atmospheric black carbon (BC) concentrations at Fukue Island for 2009–2019 was produced by unifying data from a continuous soot-monitoring system and a multi-angle absorption photometer. This record was then used to analyze emission trends from China. We identified a rapid reduction in BC concen...