FRANCE - ENVIRONMENT

The France wants to reduce its emissions of carbon soot

The world . 24.05.2012 at 16: 50 • updated 24.05.2012 at 16: 50

By Guillaume Faure

Mixed steam to dioxide of carbon and hydrogen sulfide in scientific experimentation to separate carbon dioxide, in Iceland. | ASSOCIATED PRESS/Brennan Linsley

For the first time, in 2013, the France will conduct specific surveys of carbon soot (also known as black carbon), under the direction of the Interprofessional Technical Centre for studies of atmospheric pollution (Citepa). The announcement, made on May 15, is intended "to raise health and climate of this pollutant to short life, still poorly known issues", says Jérôme Boutang, Director-General of the Citepa.
Carbon soot is a set of particles formed when combustion is incomplete. This pollution comes mainly heating or cooking with wood or road transport. The France is not the first to worry.
In February, the United States , alongside Sweden, Bangladesh, Ghana, Mexico and Canada - took the head of a coalition for climate and clean air whose main objective is to fight against gas emissions of GHGs such as methane and carbon soot, called in English SLCF (Short-Lived Climate Forcers) fast. They were joined end of April by four other nations (Colombia, Japan, Nigeria, Norway) but also by the European Commission and the World Bank.
The targeting of carbon soot is seen as a way toAct in the short term climate change. He has a lifetime of a few weeks to the difference of the CO₂ that may persist in the atmosphere for a century.

Be "If everything was being done to eliminate the carbon soot, the average increase global temperatures could be reduced by 0.03 ° C to 0.3 ° C by 2050"says Jérôme issue.

Carbon soot deposits, massively observed for example on Himalayan glaciers, contribute to the accelerated melting ice. Because they darken the surface and thus decrease their ability to reflect solar energy.
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But their damage is also health. An article in the journal Science in January estimated that short-lived gas emissions could cause of 700 000 to 4.7 million premature deaths per year, lung diseases. Next to the visible soot that blackened chimneys, there is also the much finer particles, just 2.5 microns, that alter the pulmonary alveoli.
The work of this type of emissions reduction should not to do without problem. In theEuropean Union, where 310,000 tonnes of carbon soot were rejected for the year 2010, the runways are the improvement of techniques of combustion of the wood heating and some diesel engines.

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These solutions will require research and development expenditures. However, "we believe that reducing 20% of carbon soot emissions should not result in an additional 20% over current techniques", advance Jérôme Boutang, "it is beyond that it could prove to be more difficult".
However, there are already grounds for optimism: in Europe, the emissions decreased by 25% from 1990 on environmental measures which did target but not the carbon soot in particular.

"There is still much unknown on the carbon soot, which explains the vagueness of the figures on the health and climate impacts." "But the impact is indeed there and justify to work at their disposal", finds the Citepa.