THE CASE FOR ACTION ON BLACK CARBON - Avoiding climate tipping points, building

Considering the urgency and scale of the climate crisis, scientific uncertainty over the precise impact of black carbon needs to be overcome to prevent it from paralysing the accelerated action that the planet needs. [...] Black carbon is a significant contributor to regional precipitation changes11 and has been shown to drive the slowdown of the hydrological cycle, leading to drier conditions.12 The impact of black carbon on global hydrological sensitivity is nearly twice as much as that of CO2,13 and extreme weather events are more sensitive to aerosols, specifically black carbon.14 Black carbon emissions disrupt. [...] Inequities exist in the exposure to many of the major sources of black carbon, including low-income communities often living closer to busy roads with high numbers of diesel trucks and buses26 and women and children receiving a higher burden of exposure to the harmful emissions from kerosene lamps and stoves.29 Black carbon can also worsen extreme heat conditions and increase the risk of heatwave-. [...] The emission and climate impact of scattering and absorbing aerosols such as black carbon, organic carbon and sulphates depends on fuel types, methods of combustion, geographic location of emissions and atmospheric conditions and is a vital research area to reduce climate uncertainty. [...] • Leadership organisations in other cryosphere regions, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and ICIMOD, should adopt and adapt the Arctic Council approach to collectively reduce black carbon emissions and drive climate and health benefits for their region.