Search

This paper critically examines and showcases how the pandemic affected upper-level Japanese language education at the tertiary level in Australia. From a geopolitical and sociocultural perspective, the chapter argues the discrepancy in the government political orientation, i.e. while Asian literacies have been emphasised, emphasis on multilingual and international-minded education on the tertiary level has been reduced. To this end, this paper calls for the vital need to make visible what is going on in the language education sector at the tertiary level and stresses that university education needs to shift its orientation from a monolingual to multilingual mindset in order to survive globally in the post-pandemic era.

In this Primer, Cecilia Heyes explains why imitation is thought to be a mark of cognitive complexity and an inheritance mechanism for cumulative culture. Recent research involving birds, ‘enculturated’ chimpanzees, and humans suggests that the cognitive mechanisms that make imitation possible are constructed during development through social interaction.

This study explores the impacts of alternative emission control interventions for international shipping on the European Seas on relevant air pollutant emissions, examines their consequence on ambient air quality in Europe and the neighbouring regions, and explores the resulting improvements of human health. It estimates the costs of the various policy interventions, and compares them with monetized benefits on human health and other impacts. It is found that further controls of SO₂ emissions, e.g., through SO₂ emission control areas, could deliver rather fast benefits, and avoid by 2030 up to 4000 cases of premature deaths annually, and 8000 in 2050. In the longer run, by 2050, application of Tier III NOx standards could double the health benefits. Even when using the lower (most conservative) health valuation, all reduction measures examined in this report emerged as cost-effective, with monetized benefits exceeding emission control costs typically by a factor of 6 in 2030 and by a factor of 12 in 2050. Designation of the Mediterranean Sea as an Emission Control Area could by 2030 cut emissions of SO2 and NOx from international shipping by 80 and 20 percent, respectively, compared to current legislation. These additional emission reductions could avoid 4,100 cases of premature deaths in 2030 and more than 10,000 annual premature deaths in 2050. Even with the most conservative assumptions for health valuation, monetized benefits are on average 4.4 times higher than the costs in 2030 and 7.5 times higher in 2050.

Bottom-up emission inventories provide primary understanding of sources of air pollution and essential input of chemical transport models. Focusing on SO2 and NOx, we conducted a comprehensive evaluation of two widely-used anthropogenic emission inventories over China, ECLIPSE and MIX, to explore the potential sources of uncertainties and find the clues in improving emission inventories. We first compared the activity rates and emission factors used in two inventories, and investigated the reasons of differences and the impacts on emission estimates. We found that SO2 emission estimates are consistent between two inventories (with 1 % differences), while NOx emissions in ECLIPSE's estimates are 16 % lower than those of MIX. Discrepancies at sectorial and provincial level are much higher. We then examined the impacts of different inventories on model performance, by using the nested GEOS-Chem model. We finally derived top-down NOx emissions by using the NO2 columns from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and compared with the bottom-up estimates. To our knowledge, this is the first work where source-sector comparisons are made along with the remote sensing retrievals and chemical transport modeling. Through the comparison between bottom-up emission inventories and evaluation with top-down information, we summarized the potential directions for further improvement in inventory development.

Recent behavioural and neuroimaging studies found that observation of biological action, but not of robotic action, elicits imitation and activates the'mirror neuron system'in the premotor cortex (Kilner, Paulignan, and Blakemore, 2003; Castiello, Lusher, Mari, Edwards, and Humphreys, 2002; Meltzoff, 1995; Tai, Scherfler, Brooks, Sawamoto, and Castiello, 2004). This implies that the actions of other people and of mechanical devices are processed in categorically different ways. However, if the mirror system develops through learning (Heyes, 2001), generalisation should result in some activation when observing robotic action. We asked subjects to perform a prespecified action on presentation of a human hand or a robotic device in the final posture of the same action or the opposite action (Heyes, Bird, Johnson, and Haggard, 2004; Stürmer, Ascherschleben, and Prinz, 2000). Both the human and the robotic stimuli elicited automatic imitation: the prespecified action was initiated faster when it was cued by the same action than when it was cued by the opposite action. However, even when the human and robotic stimuli were of comparable size, colour and brightness, the human hand had a stronger effect on performance. These results point to the shape of the human hand as a source of features distinguishing human from robotic action. They also suggest, as one would expect if the mirror neuron system develops through learning, that to varying degrees both human and robotic action can be'simulated'by the premotor cortex (Gallese and Goldman, 1998).

Two studies were conducted to examine whether infants' reenactment of intended but unconsummated acts in A. N. Meltzoff's (1995) failed-attempt paradigm is due to reading the adult's underlying intention or to the effects of nonimitative social learning processes. Two novel conditions that emphasized the object affordances and the spatial contiguity of the object sets were devised. When infants' first actions only were counted, infants who observed the full-demonstration model produced more target acts. When all target acts produced within the 20-s response period were counted, infants in the emulation-learning and spatial contiguity conditions produced as many target acts as infants in the full-demonstration and failed-attempt conditions. This pattern of findings suggests that nonimitative social learning processes may influence infants' response in the behavioral reenactment paradigm.

This Final Report summarizes the IIASA contributions to the SLCP Assessment for LAC project. IIASA has delivered all agreed outputs with respect to modelling work required to develop baseline and mitigation scenarios where key SLCP mitigation measures were identified. The results in form of gridded emission fields were provided to the impact and climate modelling groups involved in the project. The developed protocol for data collection allowed to acquire a harmonized data set on emissions within the region for which a number of issues were identified and it was compared with the GAINS database, leading to its improvement. This exchange between the national experts and IIASA modelling team opens up a possibility for further collaboration where also ROLAC will play a role as the information has been stored there. The final historical inventories have been harmonized with the global GAINS database and served development of scenarios. While the GAINS model has been further developed to consider specific LAC circumstances and availability of new data, the baseline and mitigation scenarios were developed in a consistent way with the global UNEP/WMO Assessment allowing a comparison of the results. The finally selected SLCP measures include additional options which were not part of the global assessment, for example, reduction of gas flaring, introduction of Marques brick kilns, shale gas options, and options to mitigate HFCs.

This paper presents a summary of the work done within the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme project ECLIPSE (Evaluating the Climate and Air Quality Impacts of Short-Lived Pollutants). ECLIPSE had a unique systematic concept for designing a realistic and effective mitigation scenario for short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs; methane, aerosols and ozone, and their precursor species) and quantifying its climate and air quality impacts, and this paper presents the results in the context of this overarching strategy. The first step in ECLIPSE was to create a new emission inventory based on current legislation (CLE) for the recent past and until 2050. Substantial progress compared to previous work was made by including previously unaccounted types of sources such as flaring of gas associated with oil production, and wick lamps. These emission data were used for present-day reference simulations with four advanced Earth system models (ESMs) and six chemistry transport models (CTMs). The model simulations were compared with a variety of ground-based and satellite observational data sets from Asia, Europe and the Arctic. It was found that the models still underestimate the measured seasonality of aerosols in the Arctic but to a lesser extent than in previous studies. Problems likely related to the emissions were identified for northern Russia and India, in particular. To estimate the climate impacts of SLCPs, ECLIPSE followed two paths of research: the first path calculated radiative forcing (RF) values for a large matrix of SLCP species emissions, for different seasons and regions independently. Based on these RF calculations, the Global Temperature change Potential metric for a time horizon of 20 years (GTP20) was calculated for each SLP emission type. This climate metric was then used in an integrated assessment model to identify all emission mitigation measures with a beneficial air quality and short-term (20-year) climate impact. These measures together defined a SLCP mitigation (MIT) scenario. Compared to CLE, the MIT scenario would reduce global methane (CH4) and black carbon (BC) emissions by about 50 and 80 %, respectively. For CH4, measures on shale gas production, waste management and coal mines were most important. For non-CH4 SLCPs, elimination of high-emitting vehicles and wick lamps, as well as reducing emissions from gas flaring, coal and biomass stoves, agricultural waste, solvents and diesel engines were most important. These measures lead to large reductions in calculated surface concentrations of ozone and particulate matter. We estimate that in the EU, the loss of statistical life expectancy due to air pollution was 7.5 months in 2010, which will be reduced to 5.2 months by 2030 in the CLE scenario. The MIT scenario would reduce this value by another 0.9 to 4.3 months. Substantially larger reductions due to the mitigation are found for China (1.8 months) and India (11.12 months). The climate metrics cannot fully quantify the climate response. Therefore, a second research path was taken. Transient climate ensemble simulations with the four ESM were run for the CLE and MIT scenarios, to determine the climate impacts of the mitigation. In these simulation, the CLE scenario resulted in a surface temperature increase of 0.70 +/- 0.14 K between the years 2006 and 2050. For the decade 2041-2050, the warming was reduced by 0.22 +/- 0.07 K in the MIT scenario, and this result was in almost exact agreement with the response calculated based on the emission metrics (reduced warming of 0.22 +/- 0.09 K). The metrics calculations suggest that non-CH4 SLCPs contribute ~ 22 % to this response and CH4 78 %. This could not be fully confirmed by the transient simulations, which attributed about 90 % of the temperature response to CH4 reductions. Attribution of the observed temperature response to non-CH4 SLCP emission reductions and BC specifically is hampered in the transient simulations by small forcing and co-emitted species of the mission basket chosen. Nevertheless, an important conclusion is that our mitigation basket as a whole would lead to clear benefits for both air quality and climate. The climate response from BC reductions in our study is smaller than reported previously, possibly because our study is one of the first to use fully coupled climate models, where unforced variability and sea ice responses cause relatively strong temperature fluctuations that may counteract (and, thus, mask) the impacts of small emission reductions. The temperature responses to the mitigation were generally stronger over the continents than over the oceans, and with a warming reduction of 0.44 K (0.39-0.49)K the largest over the Arctic. Our calculations suggest particularly beneficial climate responses in southern Europe, where surface warming was reduced by about 0.3 K and precipitation rates were increased by about 15 (6.21) mm yr^-1 more than 4 % of total precipitation) from spring to autumn. Thus, the mitigation could help to alleviate expected future drought and water shortages in the Mediterranean area. We also report other important results of the ECLIPSE roject.

The concentrations of sulfate, black carbon (BC) and other aerosols in the Arctic are characterized by high values in late winter and spring (so-called Arctic Haze) and low values in summer. Models have long ben struggling to capture this seasonality and especially the high concentrations associated with Arctic Haze. In this study, we evaluate sulfate and BC concentrations from eleven different models driven with the same emission invntory against a comprehensive pan-Arctic measurement data set over a time period of 2 years (2008-2009). The set of models consisted of one Lagrangian particle dispersion model, four chemistry transport models (CTMs), one atmospheric chemistry-weather forecast model and five chemistry climate models (CCMs), of which two were nudged to meteorological analyses and three were running freely. The measurement data set consisted of surface measurements of equivalent BC (eBC) from five stations (Alert, Barrow, Pallas, Tiksi and Zeppelin), elemental carbon (EC) from Station Nord and Alert and aircraft measurements of refractory BC (rBC) from six different campaigns. We find that the models generally captured the measured eBC or rBC and sulfate concentrations quite well compared to previous comparisons. However, the aerosol seasonality at the surface is still too weak in most model. Concentrations of eBC and sulfate averaged over three surface sites are underestimated in winter/spring in all but one model (model means for January-March underestimated by 59 and 37 % for BC and sulfate, respectivey), whereas concentrations in summer are overestimated in the model mean (by 88 and 44 % for July-Septembr), but with overestimates as well as underestimates present in individual models. The most pronounced eBC underestimates, not included in the above multi-site average, are found for the station Tiksi in Siberia where the measured annual mean eBC concentration is 3 times higher than the average annual mean for all other sations. This suggests an underestimate of BC sources in Russia in the emission inventory used. Based on the campain data, biomass burning was identified as another cause of the modeling problems. For sulfate, very large diferences were found in the model ensemble, with an apparent anti-correlation between modeled surface concentrations and total atmospheric columns. There is a strong correlation between observed sulfate and eBC concentrations wih consistent sulfate/eBC slopes found for all Arctic stations, indicating that the sources contributing to sulfate and BC are similar throughout the Arctic and that the aerosols are internally mixed and undergo similar removal. However only three models reproduced this finding, whereas sulfate and BC are weakly correlated in the other models. Overall, no class of models (e.g., CTMs, CCMs) performed better than the others and differences are independent of mode resolution.

There are cells in our motor cortex that fire both when we perform and when we observe similar actions. It has been suggested that these perceptual-motor couplings in the brain develop through associative learning during correlated sensorimotor experience. Although studies with adult participants have provided support for this hypothesis, there is no direct evidence that associative learning also underlies the initial formation of perceptual–motor couplings in the developing brain. With the present study we addressed this question by manipulating infants’ opportunities to associate the visual and motor representation of a novel action, and by investigating how this influenced their sensorimotor cortex activation when they observed this action performed by others. Pre-walking 7–9-month-old infants performed stepping movements on an infant treadmill while they either observed their own real-time leg movements (Contingent group) or the previously recorded leg movements of another infant (Non-contingent control group). Infants in a second control group did not perform any steps and only received visual experience with the stepping actions. Before and after the training period we measured infants’ sensorimotor alpha suppression, as an index of sensorimotor cortex activation, while they watched videos of other infants’ stepping actions. While we did not find greater sensorimotor alpha suppression following training in the Contingent group as a whole, we nevertheless found that the strength of the visuomotor contingency experienced during training predicted the amount of sensorimotor alpha suppression at post-test in this group. We did not find any effects of motor experience alone. These results suggest that the development of perceptual–motor couplings in the infant brain is likely to be supported by associative learning during correlated visuomotor experience.

NO2 concentrations at the street level are a major concern for urban air quality in Europe and have been regulated under the EU Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution. Despite the legal requirements, limit values are exceeded at many monitoring stations with little or no improvement during recent years. In order to assess the effects of future emission control regulations on roadside NO2 concentrations, a downscaling module has been implemented in the GAINS integrated assessment model. The module follows a hybrid approach based on atmospheric dispersion calculations and observations from the AirBase European air quality data base that are used to estimate site-specific parameters. Pollutant concentrations at every monitoring site with sufficient data coverage are disaggregated into contributions from regional background, urban increment, and local roadside increment. The future evolution of each contribution is assessed with a model of the appropriate scale – 28 × 28 km grid based on the EMEP Model for the regional background, 7 × 7 km urban increment based on the CHIMERE Chemistry Transport Model, and a chemical box model for the roadside increment. Thus, different emission scenarios and control options for long-range transport, regional and local emissions can be analysed. Observed concentrations and historical trends are well captured, in particular the differing NO2 and total NOx = NO + NO2 trends. Altogether, more than 1950 air quality monitoring stations in the EU are covered by the model, including more than 400 traffic stations and 70% of the critical stations. Together with its well-established bottom-up emission and dispersion calculation scheme, GAINS is thus able to bridge the scales from European-wide policies to impacts in street canyons. As an application of the model, we assess the evolution of attainment of NO2 limit values under current legislation until 2030. Strong improvements are expected with the introduction of the Euro 6 emission standard for light duty vehicles; however, for some major European cities, further measures may be required, in particular if aiming to achieve compliance at an earlier time., JRC.H.2-Air and Climate

This document describes the optimization framework of the GAINS model as used for the development of cost-effective air pollution control scenarios for Europe. We put particular emphasis on the methodology for finding cost-effective control strategies that address both environmental impact indicators related to air pollution, and the radiative forcing of (some of) these pollutants. The GAINS multi-pollutant multi-effect framework lends itself for analysing synergies and trade-offs between different objectives and for quantifying cost implications. In this document we describe various formal aspects of the optimization, including the dimension of the solution space, nature and use of decision variables and their relation to relevant functions, such as cost, emissions and environmental impact indicators. We illustrate standard optimization configurations that are used to calculate commonly used scenarios. We introduce the gap closure procedure that allows to set targets that are guaranteed to be feasible and which at the same time respect the need to distribute environmental benefits evenly, as far as possible, between countries. We further illustrate, for selected ambition levels, the trade-off between reductions in environmental impact indicators and radiative forcings. Within certain ranges, these trade-offs in terms of physical effects can be compensated by changing to a more costly control strategy. The cost for compensation can systematically be calculated, and very specific recommendations can be made in terms of measures in different countries. Unlike in multi-criteria optimization the current formulation of the GAINS optimization makes very explicit the distinction between environmental objectives and control costs. Thus, judgements about the relative value of various environmental benefits are not hidden in some model assumption but need to be made explicit and open in view of the results. In this way, GAINS can be used to aid policy makers to contemplate policy options with the required flexibility, without losing sight of cost-effectiveness considerations.

Mirror neurons may be a genetic adaptation for social interaction [1]. Alternatively, the associative hypothesis [2], [3] proposes that the development of mirror neurons is driven by sensorimotor learning, and that, given suitable experience, mirror neurons will respond to any stimulus. This hypothesis was tested using fMRI adaptation to index populations of cells with mirror properties. After sensorimotor training, where geometric shapes were paired with hand actions, BOLD response was measured while human participants experienced runs of events in which shape observation alternated with action execution or observation. Adaptation from shapes to action execution, and critically, observation, occurred in ventral premotor cortex (PMv) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Adaptation from shapes to execution indicates that neuronal populations responding to the shapes had motor properties, while adaptation to observation demonstrates that these populations had mirror properties. These results indicate that sensorimotor training induced populations of cells with mirror properties in PMv and IPL to respond to the observation of arbitrary shapes. They suggest that the mirror system has not been shaped by evolution to respond in a mirror fashion to biological actions; instead, its development is mediated by stimulus-general processes of learning within a system adapted for visuomotor control.

Air pollution is increasingly recognized as a significant contributor to global health outcomes. A methodological framework for evaluating the global health related outcomes of outdoor and indoor (household) air pollution is presented and validated for the year 2005. Ambient concentrations of PM2.5 re estimated with a combination of energy and atmospheric models, with detailed representation of urban and rural spatial exposures. Populations dependent on solid fuels are established with household survey data. Health impacts for outdoor and household air pollution are independently calculated using the fractions of disease that can be attributed to ambient air pollution exposure and solid fuel use. Estimated ambient pollution concentrations indicate that more than 80% of the population exceeds the WHO Air Quality Guidelines in 2005. In addition, 3.26 billion people were found to use solid fuel for cooking in three regions of Sub Saharan Africa, South Asia and Pacific Asia in 2005. Outdoor air pollution results in 2.7 million deaths or 23 million DALYs while household air pollution from solid fuel use and related indoor smoke results in 2.1 million deaths or 41.6 million DALYs. The higher morbidity from household air pollution can be attributed to children below the age of five in Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia. The burden of disease from air pollution is found to be significant, thus indicating the importance of policy interventions.

Since a major fraction of the population lives in urban areas, one crucial point concerned the correct characterization of air pollution in those zones. PM2.5 found in large cities can be decomposed into two main components: a first fraction which corresponds to the urban background air pollution and a second fraction that can be identified as the pollution directly produced by the city itself. The last one corresponds to the so call 'Urban Increment'(UI). In the 'real world', the UI is defined as the difference between a measured urban background value of a given city and a surrounded rural background measured value situated upwind of the urban area. In this case, urban background means a measured value that is not directly influenced by a local source of pollution such as traffic or industrial plume. The main hypothesis related to PM2.5 UI is that, the UI of a city corresponds to a local increase of air pollution only due to the city low-level primary emission itself. Indeed, the usual assumption is that most of thePM2.5 UI is due to low level Primary Particulate Matter emissions (PPM2.5), the secondary aerosol fraction having a more regional origin. In the frame of EC4MACS (EU.LIFE project) which aims at developing and maintaining a comprehensive integrated assessment of the policy effectiveness of emission control strategies for air pollutants and greenhouse gases, we develop an original method to determine the PM2.5 UI using WRF/CHIMERE data. We describe the modelling system used for simulating the transport of PM2.5 over Europe during the year 2006, then we explain the methodology used to compute the PM2.5 UI and we present some results for different cities across Europe. Finally, we will discuss the results and give the perspectives of our work.

This paper presents a first implementation of a new module to calculate the impacts of emission reductions of air pollutants on radiative forcing into IIASA’s GAINS (Greenhouse gas – Air pollution Interactions and Synergies) model. The approach extends the multi-pollutant/multi-effect approach of the GAINS model that has been used for air pollution impacts (i.e., human health and ecosystems impacts) to also consider impacts on near-term climate change from emissions of five short-lived substances. For the initial implementation presented in this report source-receptor relationships have been developed that quantify the impacts of reductions of the various emission substances in each European country on instantaneous radiative forcing, calculated over the northern Hemisphere, the EMEP model domain, the Arctic and Alpine glaciers. These source-receptor relationships have been derived from calculations of the EMEP Eulerian atmospheric dispersion model, and employed normalized radiative forcing in each grid cell as estimated by CICERO. The GAINS optimization module has been extended such that (a) radiative forcing for different target regions resulting from emission reductions that are optimized for health and environmental impacts of air pollutants can be calculated, (b) radiative forcing can be introduced as a separate constraint in the optimization (replacing targets for health and environmental impacts of air pollutants), and (c) combined strategies that meet constraints on radiative forcing as well as on health and environmental impacts at least costs can be identified. A sample of initial calculations is presented in this report, illustrating the relations between different environmental targets and radiative forcing. It turns out that in general cost-effective improvements of health impacts from PM2.5 and of acidification will increase radiative forcing by up to 150-200 mWm-2 in the EMEP region. In contrast, improvements in eutrophication will hardly affect radiative forcing. Furthermore, there are cheap ways to avoid some of the trade-offs between health effect and radiative forcing targets. This initial analysis focuses on instantaneous radiative forcing over the EMEP domain. Input data and optimization routines have also been developed for carbon deposition on the Arctic and on Alpine glaciers. Analysis of the impacts of alternative emission control scenarios on these receptor regions, and optimization for such targets, will require additional work. It needs to be emphasized that the current analysis is based on an initial data set of the impacts of radiative forcing, which only considers the direct effects of aerosols on radiative forcing. It does not include indirect effects of aerosols (for which an accurate quantification is burdened with significant uncertainties), and ignores changes in radiative forcing that result from changes in ozone burdens in the atmosphere caused by cuts of NOx and VOC emissions.

Automatic imitation has been used as a behavioural index of the functioning of the human mirror system (e.g. Brass, Bekkering, Wohlschlager, & Prinz, 2000; Heyes, Bird, Johnson, & Haggard, 2005; Kilner, Paulignan, & Blakemore, 2003). However, several papers have criticised the assumption that automatic imitation is mediated by the mirror system on the grounds that automatic imitation has been confounded with simple spatial compatibility (Aicken, Wilson, Williams, & Mon-Williams, 2007; Bertenthal, Longo, and Kosobud, 2006; Jansson, Wilson, Williams, & Mon-Williams, 2007). Two experiments are reported in which, in contrast with previous studies, automatic imitation was measured on both spatially compatible and spatially incompatible trials, and automatic imitation was shown to be present regardless of spatial compatibility. Additional features of the two experiments allowed measurement of the time courses of the automatic imitation and spatial compatibility effects both within and across trials. It was found that automatic imitation effects follow a different time course from spatial compatibility effects, providing further evidence for their independence and supporting the use of automatic imitation as a behavioural marker of mirror system functioning.

This report documents the basic methodology of IIASA's GAINS model that has been used for comparing mitigation efforts across Annex I Parties. Additional information is available at gains.iiasa.ac.at/Annex1.html

This report presents a generic methodology for estimating, for the purposes of a Europe-wide integrated assessment of the cost-effectiveness of emission control strategies, concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the urban areas of Europe. The report outlines the conceptual approach, discusses input data and presents results from a first implementation for 473 European cities based on input data that are readily available at the European level. The methodology hypothesizes a functional relationship that connects the most critical city-specific factors with concentration increases in PM2.5 that result from the local low-level emissions in a city. The diameter of a city, annual mean wind speeds, the number of winter days with low wind speeds and emission densities have been identified as the most important local factors. Parameters of these functional relationships have been determined through a regression analysis of a sample of model responses derived from an ensemble of three state-of-the-art atmospheric dispersion models for seven cities. To extrapolate the found relationships to all European cities, a set with local input data for the 473 cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants has been compiled from available European data sources. Most strikingly, significant differences in the emission densities across countries are detected, which have a dominating impact on the computed urban increments. A solid validation of the computed urban PM2.5 increments is hampered by the lack of reliable monitoring data.

In 2005 the European Commission developed the Thematic Strategy on Air Quality (COM (2005) 446). IIASA's TAP programme has been instrumental in preparing various emission scenarios for the development of the strategy, and the optimization module of RAINS has been used extensively in the exercise. In this report we document the mathematical formulation and methodological aspects of the optimization module of RAINS.

Many of the traditional air pollutants and greenhouse gases have common sources, offering a cost-effective potential for simultaneous improvements for both traditional air pollution problems as well as climate change. A methodology has been developed to extend the RAINS integrated assessment model to explore synergies and trade-offs between the control of greenhouse gases and air pollution. With this extension, the RAINS model allows now the assessment of emission control costs for the six greenhouse gases covered under the Kyoto Protocol (CO2, CH4, N2O and the three F-gases) together with the emissions of air pollutants SO2, NOX, VOC, NH3 AND PM. In the first phase of the study, emissions, costs and control potentials for the six greenhouse gases covered in the Kyoto Protocol have been estimated and implemented in the RAINS model. Emission estimates are based on methodologies and emission factors proposed by the IPCC emission reporting guidelines. The large number of control options for greenhouse gases have been grouped into approximately 150 packages of measures and implemented in the RAINS model for the European countries. These control options span a wide range of cost-effectiveness. There a re certain advanced technical measures with moderate costs, and certain measures exist for which the economic assessment suggests even negative costs, if major side impacts (cost savings) are calculated. Illustrative example calculations clearly demonstrate that conclusions on the cost-effectiveness of emission reduction strategies are crucially depending on the boundaries of the analysis. The net cost of greenhouse gas control strategies are significantly lower if the immediate cost-savings from avoided air pollution control costs are taken into consideration. For a 15 percent reduction of the CO2 emissions from the power sector in the EU, avoided pollution control costs could compensate two third of the CO2 control costs. Depending on the design of the control strategy, net costs of greenhouse gas mitigation could even be negative, which is in stark contrast to conclusions for a CO2 only strategy. However, there are certain greenhouse gas mitigation measures, such as increased use of biomass that could deteriorate the negative impacts of air pollution, while yielding very little economic synergies. A combined approach towards greenhouse gas mitigation and air pollution control would not only reveal economic synergies, but also harness additional environmental benefits. Even in a situation with stringent emission control requirements for air pollution as it is required by the EU legislation, modifications in fuel use geared towards reductions of greenhouse gases could lead as a side impact to significant reductions in the residual emissions of air pollutants. The economic benefits of such "windfall emission reductions" could be substantial. The extended RAINS model framework will offer a tool to systematically investigate such economic and environmental synergies between greenhouse gas mitigation and air pollution control while avoiding negative side impacts.