Climat : papiers de recherche moissonnés (12/09/2018)

Decarbonising road freight in Europe: A socio-economic assessment – final report. European Climate Foundation ; Cambridge Econometrics, Aug. 2018, 59 p. https://www.actu-environnement.com/media/pdf/news-31952-rapport.pdf

The study shows that, while there are potentially large economic and environmental benefits associated with decarbonising road freight in Europe, there are also transitional challenges which must be addressed if the benefits are to be realised. Up until now there has been little effort from OEM and policy makers to decarbonise vans and HGVs. But there are signs that the market is about to change. In May 2018 the European Commission put forward a proposal for the first ever European CO2 emission standards for HGVs, buses and coaches8. Throughout 2017 and 2018, a number of OEMs have unveiled prototypes of electric and hydrogen-fuelled propulsion systems for HGVs.

Pollution de l’air : notre santé n’est toujours pas suffisamment protégée [Air pollution:  Our health still insufficiently protected]. Cour des comptes européenne, septembre 2018, 74 p. (Rapport spécial n° 23/201) https://www.eca.europa.eu/fr/Pages/DocItem.aspx?did=46723

La pollution atmosphérique porte gravement atteinte à la santé des citoyens européens. Chaque année, quelque 400 000 personnes décèdent prématurément du fait des quantités excessives de polluants atmosphériques tels que les particules de poussière, le dioxyde d’azote et l’ozone. L’Union européenne est dotée, depuis près de 30 ans, d’une législation de lutte contre la pollution atmosphérique qui fixe des limites en matière de concentrations en polluants dans l’air. Toutefois, aujourd’hui encore, les problèmes de qualité de l’air restent fréquents dans la plupart des États membres de l’UE et dans un grand nombre de villes d’Europe. Nous avons constaté que les principales raisons pour lesquelles les citoyens européens continuent de respirer de l’air pollué résident dans le caractère peu contraignant de la législation et dans une mise en oeuvre inadéquate de la politique. Nos recommandations visent à renforcer les dispositions de la directive sur la qualité de l’air ambiant et à promouvoir davantage d’actions efficaces de la Commission européenne et des États membres, notamment l’amélioration de la coordination des politiques et de l’information du public.

Climate model shows large-scale wind and solar farms in the Sahara increase rain and vegetation / Yan Li, Eugenia Kalnay, Safa Motesharrei, Jorge Rivas, Fred Kucharski, Daniel Kirk-Davidoff, Eviatar Bach & Ning Zeng, Science, vol. 361, n° 6406, 7/09/2018, pp. 1019-1022 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6406/1019

Wind and solar farms offer a major pathway to clean, renewable energies. However, these farms would significantly change land surface properties, and, if sufficiently large, the farms may lead to unintended climate consequences. In this study, we used a climate model with dynamic vegetation to show that large-scale installations of wind and solar farms covering the Sahara lead to a local temperature increase and more than a twofold precipitation increase, especially in the Sahel, through increased surface friction and reduced albedo. The resulting increase in vegetation further enhances precipitation, creating a positive albedo–precipitation–vegetation feedback that contributes ~80% of the precipitation increase for wind farms. This local enhancement is scale dependent and is particular to the Sahara, with small impacts in other deserts.

Climate change: back to development / Michel Damian and Luigi De Paoli, Economics and Policy of Energy and the Environment, vol. LIX (2017), n° 3, pp. 5-24 https://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=62149&Tipo=Articolo%20PDF&lingua=it&idRivista=10

The Paris Agreement has created a double bifurcation. First, from top-down approach (with an emission limit imposed from above) to a bottom-up approach based on national emissions reduction pledges. And second, from a mitigation-centered policy to a more balanced mitigation and adaptation efforts. The following work proposes, however, that further steps must be taken to bring the theme of development back to the center of the fight against climate change.

Danièle Revel

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