Christopher S. Malley

In 2021, Nigeria became the first country in the world to state, quantitatively, how implementing their nationally determined contribution (NDC) to mitigate climate change could improve health. Nigeria’s NDC stated that an estimated 30 000 premature deaths could be avoided annually by 2030 due to reduction in household air pollution caused by burning wood and charcoal for cooking. As Nigeria moves to implement its climate change commitments, there are two key questions that this paper aims to address. Firstly, across Nigeria, where are the greatest health burdens from household air pollution that could be targeted to achieve these health benefits, and secondly, to what extent does wood fuel consumption drive greenhouse gas emissions from the forestry and land use (FOLU) sector? To explore these questions this paper utilizes available statistical data on households primary cooking fuel choice at the state level in Nigeria to estimate the health impact from household air pollution due to households cooking using wood and charcoal. It also provides an estimate of the total wood fuel demand in the country and from this provides an estimate of the carbon dioxide emissions from the FOLU sector associated with these households’ biomass use. In 2018, it was estimated that of the almost 116 thousand premature deaths attributable to household air pollution in 23% occurred in 3 states in Northern Nigeria. The biomass consumption for household energy consumption across Nigeria was estimated to contribute 78% of the 151 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions estimated within this analysis to be due to the FOLU sector in Nigeria. Hence action targeted at transitioning households to modern cooking fuels and technologies can have a large impact on achieving the dual climate and health goals Nigeria has set itself within its climate change commitment.

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-benefits frequently requires overcoming difficult-to-measure social and institutional barriers. This study extends insights from research focusing on quantitatively assessing the feasibility of a 1.5 °C future to build a multidimensional framework for measuring different barriers to achieving co-benefits. The framework offers a novel yet generalizable approach for bringing context-appropriate assessments of different dimensions of feasibility into the integrated assessment modelling that underpins work on co-benefits. It then outlines five steps for applying that framework to evaluate the size of different barriers for transport, agricultural and residential energy co-benefit solutions in Thailand. The results demonstrate that the sum of the delays from social/institutional barriers exceed economic/technological barriers for four out of six studied solutions. These delays also lead to increases of 24% to 31% in PM_2.5 emissions relative to a no-barriers effective implementation scenario between 2015 and 2030 and 2040. The feasibility framework can be integrated into not only national policy scenarios but also project assessments, following trends in carbon finance. An international barriers database as well as strengthening links to work on barriers and technological diffusion, transaction costs, and multi-level transitions can also help spread multi-dimensional feasibility assessments across countries and scales.

Mongolia’s faces substantial challenges to reduce its Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions due to reliance on coal to meet electricity, heat and other energy demand and large livestock emissions. Despite this, Mongolia has committed to reduce GHG emissions by 22.7% in 2030 compared to a baseline scenario. Greenhouse gas mitigation assessments for Mongolia have focussed on actions to achieve emission reductions by 2030, but not on the potential for further reductions over the longer-term. This study addresses this gap through the development of long-term (2050) GHG emission pathways for Mongolia. These pathways aim to inform what level of GHG reduction targets Mongolia could commit to for the period after its current target expires. Greenhouse gas emissions are quantified for historic years (2010–2019) for all major GHG emitting sectors, and projected to 2050 based on the population and economic forecasts. Finally, mitigation scenarios modelling implementation of 49 specific mitigation measures are developed, to quantify their emission reduction potential. Without mitigation, GHG emissions were estimated to increase by 67% and 139% in 2030 and 2050, respectively, compared to 2019 levels (39 million tonnes CO₂-eq emissions). Implementation of the 49 mitigation measures could reduce GHG emissions by 40% in 2050 compared to the baseline. Therefore, post-2030, Mongolia could increase its climate change mitigation ambition. Renewable Electricity generation, and energy efficiency were the measures that could achieve the majority of these additional emission reductions. However, there remains a substantial gap between the emission reduction potential of technically feasible measures currently being considered in Mongolia’s climate change mitigation planning, and full decarbonisation.

The open burning of agricultural crop residues poses a sizable threat to Southeast Asia’s near-term prosperity and long-term sustainability. Though Southeast Asia’s policymakers have adopted burning bans and other solutions to curb this threat, few studies have systematically assessed their implementation prospects. This study offers a novel data-driven assessment of those prospects in Thailand. More concretely, it estimates how much economic, technological, institutional, and social barriers could slow the implementation of burning restrictions featured in Thailand’s PM_2.5 control plan. This study finds that institutional/social barriers delay implementation more than technical/economic barriers, resulting in about twice the level of PM_2.5 emissions relative to an effectively implemented policy scenario over a 10- to 20-year period. This study also demonstrates that the costs of overcoming social/institutional barriers are approximately 14 million US dollars annually over a ten-year period. This figure is equivalent to about a 70% increase on the 21 million US dollars planned for controlling burning in 2026 in Thailand. The approach employed in this study—though not free of imperfections—can also be used for finer-grained comparison of the barriers/costs of managing different crop residues in Thailand and beyond.

Recent rapid economic development in Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) has increased national fuel consumption, vehicle fleet, industrial output, waste generation, and agricultural production. This has contributed to national average ambient fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) air pollutant levels that are four times higher than World Health Organisation guidelines. Emission inventories are a key tool in understanding the major sources to these air pollution levels, and provide a starting point to identify where mitigation action can be targeted. A national air pollutant emission inventory has not been developed in Lao PDR and, combined with a limited air quality monitoring network means there is limited capacity to develop and track the effectiveness of mitigation actions. This study describes the first air pollutant emission inventory at the national and provincial scale for Lao PDR, covering 2013–2019. Emissions of nine air pollutants, and two greenhouse gases, were quantified using national statistics and international default emission factors. In 2019, national total PM_2.5, Nitrogen Oxides (NO_x), Black Carbon (BC), Sulphur Dioxide (SO₂), Non-Methane Volatile Organic Carbons (NMVOCs), and Ammonia (NH₃) were 125, 83, 9.7, 26, 219, and 99 thousand tonnes respectively. Key source sectors include forest fires, residential cooking, agriculture, electricity generation, and transport. However, the contribution of different sources varies across provinces. Forest fires are the primary source determining the spatial trend of particulate air pollution while residential and agricultural emissions contribute more significantly to rural provinces such as Savannakhet. Key sectors in major urban provinces (Vientiane Capital and Xayaboury) are industry, transport and electricity generation. These sectors are also significant sources of greenhouse gases (CO₂ and CH₄), demonstrating the potential for identification, evaluation and prioritisation of actions that simultaneously improve air quality and achieve Lao PDR’s international climate change commitments.

Limiting global temperature increases to below 1.5 °C requires reductions in Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCPs), like methane, black carbon, and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which is rarely reflected in targets within Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Colombia’s 2020 NDC is explored as a case study for how Governments can integrate SLCP mitigation targets into climate change commitments. Methane and HFC mitigation contribute approximately 9% of Colombia’s GHG reduction commitment, and a separate target is included to reduce black carbon emissions by 40% by 2030 compared to 2014 levels. These targets are shown to be ambitious, due to the inclusion of a new black carbon target, realistic due to the identification of mitigation measures to achieve them, and additional to CO₂ mitigation. Analysis of the planning process establishing these targets emphasises the importance of long-term planning to obtain agreement between coordinating institutions and implementing institutions on the utility of SLCP targets, and capacity-building within national institutions.