Posted: 08/05/2004
Smog And Climate Change Connection False
NCPA Says NRDC Study Flawed; Allows Politics to Cloud Science
August 5, 2004 – A new report from the National Resources Defense Council, a liberal environmental advocacy group, makes the erroneous claim that future ozone smog levels will increase thanks to human-induced global warming. According to experts from the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), the study is fundamentally flawed, leading to false conclusions.
“Contrary to the reports’ dire warnings, smog will go down regardless of warming,” said H. Sterling Burnett, an NCPA senior fellow. “Smog has been reducing for the last 25 years, and it will continue to do so because of the stringency of air pollution regulations and technological improvements.”
The report projects that by mid-century, residents in the 15 cities they examined will see an average 60 percent increase in the number of days when ozone levels exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s ozone smog standard and a 20 percent dip in the number of summer days with good air quality. Yet according to NCPA experts, this conclusion is not based on reality.
According to NCPA experts, NRDC used smog-forming emission levels from the mid 1990s to predict smog levels in the 2050s and 2080s. However, volatile organic compounds (VOC) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), the two smog-forming emissions, have actually dropped by at least 50 percent and 25 percent respectively over the past 10 years. Thus, NRDC modeling estimates don’t even apply now, much less 50 or 80 years from now.
“We’ve already taken actions that will eliminate most remaining smog-forming pollution over the next 20 years or so,” said NCPA adjunct scholar Joel Schwartz. Schwartz is also a visiting scholar with the American Enterprise Institute. Schwartz points out that:
- Starting in starting in May 2004, the EPA required a 60% reduction in NOx emissions from coal-fired power plants and industrial boilers during the May-September “ozone season.”
- Data from on-road measurements and vehicle inspection programs show automobile emissions are dropping about 10% per year as the fleet turns over to ever-cleaner models. A fleet meeting EPA standards implemented in the 2004 model year—that is, the fleet that will be on the road in 15 to 20 years—will be 90% cleaner than the current average vehicle.
- EPA’s diesel truck regulation requires a 90% reduction in NOx and soot from diesel beginning in the 2007 model-year, a requirement that will eliminate almost all remaining diesel truck emissions by the 2020s. A similar requirement for off-road diesel equipment comes into effect in 2010.
“Given the actual emissions reductions already achieved, along with future reductions already in the pipeline, not only will air quality not get worse, warming or not there’s no way to stop continued improvements,” said Schwartz. “Indeed, global warming or not, no claim by environmental activists is more ridiculous than the claim that air pollution will increase.”