Climate treaty needed to limit soot & other greenhouse pollutants

BERKELEY — When world leaders meet in Copenhagen in December to hash out a treaty limiting carbon dioxide emissions, they should begin planning a future summit to address other pollutants - from soot to ozone - that don't remain in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide, but nevertheless are major contributors to global warming. That is the view of University of California, Berkeley, researcher Stacy C. Jackson, who presents her arguments in a policy piece appearing in the Oct. 23 issue of the journal Science . Jackson, 37, a Ph.D. student in the Energy & Resources Group at UC Berkeley, researched the effects of short-lived pollutants like soot that stay in the atmosphere from days to weeks; medium-lived pollutants like methane that may remain airborne for a decade; and the long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, which will plague the planet for centuries. Over a 20-year window, the short- and medium-lived emissions make up over half the human contributions to global warming, Jackson said. "We know we have a long-term problem and that we need to reduce CO2 aggressively, but scientists are becoming concerned about whether there are going to be more climate changes in the near term than we previously believed," said Jackson.