Abstract
ICLEI reviewed Durham North Carolina’s Climate Action Plan for its impact of air emissions using the Clean Air and Climate Protection Software. We find that Durham’s GHG reduction target of 5% below a 1998 baseline by 2025, a plan based primarily on energy and transportation demand side management (DSM), may reduce NOx, SOx, and PM10 by 30-60% against their respective 1998 baselines. The reason is that the climate action plan is designed to curb GHG emissions that are expected to grow by 40% in the next 20 years. Air pollutants, on the other hand, will increase much less in the business-as-usual case because of improving control technologies. Therefore reducing energy demand through the climate plan ultimately magnifies the net benefits achieved by better air pollution control technologies.
In addition, the study shows that other possible improvements in technology, such as implementing SULEV vehicle emission standards by 2025, would further reduce Durham area NOx emissions by an amount comparable to the reductions achieved from the climate action plan.
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