Spatial Patterns of Crop Yield Change by Emitted Pollutant

Marginal Damage of Methane Emissions: Ozone Impacts on Agriculture

Methane directly contributes to air pollution, as an ozone precursor, and to climate change, generating physical and economic damages to different systems, namely agriculture, vegetation, energy, human health, or biodiversity. The methane-related damages to climate, measured as the Social Cost of Methane, and to human health have been analyzed by different studies and considered by government rulemaking in the last decades, but the ozone-related damages to crop revenues associated to methane emissions have not been incorporated to policy agenda. Using a combination of the Global Change Analysis Model and the TM5-FASST Scenario Screening Tool, we estimate that global marginal agricultural damages range from ~423 to 556 $2010/t-CH4, of which 98 $2010/t-CH4 occur in the USA, which is the most affected region due to its role as a major crop producer, followed by China, EU-15, and India. These damages would represent 39-59% of the climate damages and 28-64% of the human health damages associated with methane emissions by previous studies. The marginal damages to crop revenues calculated in this study complement the damages from methane to climate and human health, and provides valuable information to be considered in future cost-benefits analyses.

Characterisation of Pythium aristosporum Oomycete—A Novel Pathogen Causing Rice Seedling Blight in China

Rice seedling blight is a globally occurring seedling disease caused by multiple pathogens. It is currently the most common disease affecting rice production in northeast China; hence, determining the causal agents, including its biological characteristics, host range, and fungicide efficacy is vital for its effective management. The present study obtained 45 pathogenic isolates from diseased rice seedlings in Suihua, Heilongjiang Province, China. Of these, five pathogens were identified based on their morphology and molecular identification, while 10 oomycete isolates were identified as Pythium aristosporum—the first to be reported in rice seedling blight. Its optimum growth conditions include a temperature of 25 °C, pH 6, and photoperiod of 24 h. Except for soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.), black soybean (Glycine max var.), and cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.), P. aristosporum can potentially infect and cause seedling blight on other hosts, such as wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), maize (Zea mays L.), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench), alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), oats (Avena sativa L.), and white clover (Trifolium repens L.). Its isolates were found to be highly sensitive to metalaxyl + propamocarb (EC₅₀ = 0.0138 μg/mL) with 84.1% efficacy at 313 μg/mL. These results can serve as the basis for controlling P. aristosporum.

Mitigating climate disruption in time: A self-consistent approach for avoiding both near-term and long-term global warming

This study clarifies the need for comprehensive CO₂ and non-CO₂ mitigation approaches to address both near-term and long-term warming. Non-CO₂ greenhouse gases (GHGs) are responsible for nearly half of all climate forcing from GHG. However, the importance of non-CO₂ pollutants, in particular short-lived climate pollutants, in climate mitigation has been underrepresented. When historical emissions are partitioned into fossil fuel (FF)- and non-FF-related sources, we find that nearly half of the positive forcing from FF and land-use change sources of CO₂ emissions has been masked by coemission of cooling aerosols. Pairing decarbonization with mitigation measures targeting non-CO₂ pollutants is essential for limiting not only the near-term (next 25 y) warming but also the 2100 warming below 2 °C.

The ongoing and projected impacts from human-induced climate change highlight the need for mitigation approaches to limit warming in both the near term (<2050) and the long term (>2050). We clarify the role of non-CO₂ greenhouse gases and aerosols in the context of near-term and long-term climate mitigation, as well as the net effect of decarbonization strategies targeting fossil fuel (FF) phaseout by 2050. Relying on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change radiative forcing, we show that the net historical (2019 to 1750) radiative forcing effect of CO₂ and non-CO₂ climate forcers emitted by FF sources plus the CO₂ emitted by land-use changes is comparable to the net from non-CO₂ climate forcers emitted by non-FF sources. We find that mitigation measures that target only decarbonization are essential for strong long-term cooling but can result in weak near-term warming (due to unmasking the cooling effect of coemitted aerosols) and lead to temperatures exceeding 2 °C before 2050. In contrast, pairing decarbonization with additional mitigation measures targeting short-lived climate pollutants and N₂O, slows the rate of warming a decade or two earlier than decarbonization alone and avoids the 2 °C threshold altogether. These non-CO₂ targeted measures when combined with decarbonization can provide net cooling by 2030 and reduce the rate of warming from 2030 to 2050 by about 50%, roughly half of which comes from methane, significantly larger than decarbonization alone over this time frame. Our analysis demonstrates the need for a comprehensive CO₂ and targeted non-CO₂ mitigation approach to address both the near-term and long-term impacts of climate disruption.

Temporal and spatial distribution of health, labor, and crop benefits of climate change mitigation in the United States

Societal benefits from climate change mitigation accrue via multiple pathways. We examine the US impacts of emission changes on several factors that are affected by both climate and air quality responses. Nationwide benefits through midcentury stem primarily from air quality improvements, which are realized rapidly, and include human health, labor productivity, and crop yield benefits. Benefits from reduced heat exposure become large around 2060, thereafter often dominating over those from improved air quality. Monetized benefits are in the tens of trillions of dollars for avoided deaths and tens of billions for labor productivity and crop yield increases and reduced hospital expenditures. Total monetized benefits this century are dominated by health and are much larger than in previous analyses due to improved understanding of the human health impacts of exposure to both heat and air pollution. Benefit-cost ratios are therefore much larger than in prior studies, especially those that neglected clean air benefits. Specifically, benefits from clean air exceed costs in the first decade, whereas benefits from climate alone exceed costs in the latter half of the century. Furthermore, monetized US benefits largely stem from US emissions reductions. Increased emphasis on the localized, near-term air quality-related impacts would better align policies with societal benefits and, by reducing the mismatch between perception of climate as a risk distant in space and time and the need for rapid action to mitigate long-term climate change, might help increase acceptance of mitigation policies.

An asymmetrical analysis to explore the dynamic impacts of CO2 emission to renewable energy, expenditures, foreign direct investment, and trade in Pakistan

Carbon dioxide emission and GHGs are associated with fossil fuels which have adverse effects on the environment. The key intention of this paper was to determine the asymmetric effect of CO₂ emission on expenditures, trade, FDI, and renewable energy consumption in Pakistan. An asymmetrical technique (nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag) was employed to validate the constructive and adverse relation among variables. Furthermore, the Granger causality test was also used to verify the unidirectional association amid variables. Study outcomes revealed that the adverse shocks of renewable energy consumption exposed expressively to upsurge CO₂ emission in the short-run dynamics. Conversely, constructive shocks of renewable energy consumption display an adversative association with CO₂ emission. Furthermore, the decreasing trend in foreign direct investment tends to impede the detrimental effects of CO₂ emission. Additionally, the variable expenditures also create the non-eco-friendly impacts and manifest the positive linkage through CO₂ emission. Trade possesses statistically insignificant linkage with environmental degradation. The results also disclose that positive as well as negative variations in the foreign direct investment expose to degrade the environmental eminence. Long-run results suggest the direct association between downward trend in renewable energy consumption and CO₂ emission signifying that the pollution level decreases, and the upward trend in renewable energy consumption, however, demonstrates insignificantly positive effects. The results also disclose that positive as well as negative variations in the FDI lead to degrade the CO₂ emission. Moreover, it is found that the expenditures soar the issue of pollution again in the long run. Finally, the consequence of trade on CO₂ emission is adverse, as the outcome suggests. In order to improve the environmental policies for sustainable growth, the study provides direction toward a sustainable environment by reducing carbon dioxide emission.