U.S. Partnerships Reduce Soot Emissions

A Mack Engines representative shows how well a new emissions filter works by placing a white handkerchief on the stack of a running diesel truck.

Washington — School buses, locomotives, garbage trucks and fleets of other dirty machines are being replaced thanks to funds provided by the U.S. Environment Protection Agency. EPA has announced winners of $30 million in grants for replacing or re-fitting diesel-fueled equipment with more environmentally friendly technology .

At the Port of Long Beach, California, they'll be pulling diesel-fuming tractors off the yard. In Colorado, they'll retrofit close to 200 school buses to cut down on their emissions. In Detroit, they'll replace or repower a fleet of trucks, buses, construction vehicles and public vehicles with EPA grants, all in the interest of reducing the level of black-carbon emissions that pollute the air and endanger human health.

The National Clean Diesel Campaign provides funding assistance for state and local governments and nonprofit organizations, encouraging them to submit proposals for reducing emissions from existing diesel engines, and rewarding the best ones with the grants. The EPA made the awards, announced October 11, under the 2005 Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, which authorized up to $200 million in federal funds to a variety of initiatives devoted to reducing the level of black-carbon emissions.

Anyone who ever sat in traffic behind a big truck knows diesel engines emit not just soot, but nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons that contribute to smog and acid rain. Emissions from diesel exhaust can provoke health conditions like asthma and allergies, and can worsen heart and lung disease, especially in vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly. Humans, animals, plants and water resources can all be harmed by these forms of pollution.

Soot contributes to global warming along with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But soot, methane and a few other short-lived climate pollutants (SLCP) don't have a long-term life in the atmosphere. Soot settles back to earth, and other gases break down at the molecular level.

The U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) released research in 2011 showing that reductions in the emission of short-lived pollutants alone would lead to solid progress against the warming of the planet and resulting climate change.

In February, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and ministers from the partner nations of Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico and Sweden announced the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) to focus on this class of emissions to achieve some near-term gains against global warming.

“Millions die annually from constantly breathing in black-carbon soot that comes from cookstoves in their own homes, from diesel cars and trucks on their roads, from the open burning of agricultural waste in their fields,” Clinton said in February. Methane, another greenhouse gas targeted by this coalition, is a precursor to ground-level ozone, another health irritant.

UNEP predicts that fast action to reduce SLCPs can have a direct impact on climate change, with the potential to reduce the warming expected by 2050 by up to 0.5 degrees Celsius.

By 2030, SLCP reduction can prevent millions of premature deaths, and avoid the annual loss of more than 30 million tons of crops, according to CCAC.

Since the initial announcement, more governments and organizations have joined CCAC. In August, several prominent nongovernmental organizations — such as the Clean Air Task Force and the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development — announced support to CCAC, swelling membership to 27 partners.

The coalition partners have been working to identify quick-start actions that will ensure rapid delivery of better air. UNEP hosts the headquarters for the coalition and reports that reducing soot spewing from brick kilns is a project currently under study. CCAC will build on existing knowledge and proven technologies to accelerate reductions in the harmful climate and health risks stemming from inefficient brick making.

A CCAC document indicates that inefficient kilns are raising pollution levels in many places around the globe. Approximately 100,000 large operating units are in India, and 6,000 units in Bangladesh are large-scale kilns that date to the early 1900s. Artisanal brick making is also a poplar trade in Mexico, where 20,000 kilns emit excess soot, CCAC reports.

A study in Asia indicated that switching 35,000 kilns in the region to cleaner technologies would cut black-carbon emissions by 40,000 tons.

As a founding member of the CCAC, Ghana hosted a gathering in Accra in September attended by government officials, environmental experts and industrial representatives from 15 African countries. With the support of Ghana’s Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology, the session focused on ideas to broaden the region’s support for steps to reduce open-air pollution and black-carbon emissions.