Potential for future reductions of global GHG and air pollutants from circular waste management systems.

The rapidly rising generation of municipal solid waste jeopardizes the environment and contributes to climate heating. Based on the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, we here develop a global systematic approach for evaluating the potentials to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants from the implementation of circular municipal waste management systems. We contrast two sets of global scenarios until 2050, namely baseline and mitigation scenarios, and show that mitigation strategies in the sustainability-oriented scenario yields earlier, and major, co-benefits compared to scenarios in which inequalities are reduced but that are focused solely on technical solutions.

Cost-effective control of SO2 emissions in Asia.

Despite recent efforts to limit the growth of SO(2) emissions in Asia, the negative environmental effects of sulphur emissions are likely to further increase in the future. This paper presents an extension of the RAINS-Asia integrated assessment model for acidification in Asia with an optimisation routine that can be used to identify cost-effective emission control strategies that achieve environmental targets for ambient SO(2) concentrations and sulphur deposition at least costs. Example scenarios developed with this optimisation module demonstrate a potential for significant cost savings in Asia, if emission controls are allocated to those sources that have the largest environmental impact and are cheapest to control.