"Soot, Smog Curbs Quick Way To Combat Warming: U.N. Study"

"Tighter limits on soot and smog provide a quick and easy way to fight global warming while protecting human health and raising crop output, a U.N. study said on Tuesday.

It outlined 16 measures, ranging from plugging leaky gas transport pipelines to improving wood burning stoves, to limit "black carbon" -- soot -- methane and tropospheric ozone, which is a greenhouse gas that is a big component of smog.

"A small number of emission reduction measures ... offer dramatic public health, agricultural, economic and environmental benefits," Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme, said in a statement of the report.

The study, urging actions beyond a normal focus on curbing carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from human activities, said the recommended actions could lop 0.5 degree Celsius (0.9 Fahrenheit) off rising temperatures.

That would help the world reach a goal adopted by 200 nations in Mexico last year of limiting the rise to below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial times. World temperatures have already risen by about 0.8 degree C, and are headed upwards."

Alister Doyle reports for Reuters June 15, 2011.

SEE ALSO:

"UN -- Curbing Black Carbon Would Bring Dramatic, Quick Benefits To All" (Guardian)