Projections of SO2, NOx and carbonaceous aerosols emissions in Asia

Estimates of Asian emissions of air pollutants and carbonaceous aerosols and their mid-term projections have been changing significantly in the last years. The remote sensing community has shown that increase in NO_x in Central East Asia is much stronger than any of the emission inventories or projections indicated so far. A number of studies reviewing older estimates appeared. Here, we review the key contributions and compare them to the most recent results of the GAINS model application for Asia and to the SRES projections used in the IPPC work. The recent projections indicate that the growth of emissions of SO₂ in Asia should slow down significantly towards 2010 or even stabilize at the current level. For NO_x, however, further growth is projected although it will be most likely slower that in the last decade, owing to introduction of measures in transport. Emissions of carbonaceous aerosols (black carbon and organic carbon) are expected to decline after 2010, largely due to reduced use of biofuels in residential sector and efficiency improvements. The estimates of these emissions are burdened with significantly larger uncertainties than SO₂ and NO_x; even for the year 2000 the differences in estimates between studies are up to a factor of 2.