National Planning (SNAP)

Emissions associated with Short Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCPs) are harming millions of people around the world through their direct and indirect impacts on human health, agriculture, ecosystems, and global and regional climate.

SLCP sources vary from country to country, ranging from black carbon and associated emissions from traditional brick production, inefficient cookstoves, and in the exhaust from diesel engines, to the leakage of methane from oil and natural gas production, and methane emissions from the decomposition of waste in landfills and agricultural practices. Compelling scientific evidence indicates that fast action to control SLCPs will have immediate and significant and multiple climate and air quality benefits for communities around the World. For example, global action on black carbon and methane can help slow down expected warming in 2050 by up to 0.5 degree Celsius and avoid about 2.4 million annual premature deaths and 52 million tonnes of annual crop loss by 2030.

Action at the national scale is important, as decision making is often made at that scale. Rapid reductions in emissions from SLCP sources can be achieved through the implementation of cost-effective measures using national policies, programmes and regulatory frameworks, such as those used to address air quality, climate change and sustainable development. The need for urgent action to address SLCPs is now widely recognised, but support for national governments is needed to identify and promote the key mitigation measures that can bring rapid climate, health and environmental benefits.

The SNAP Initiative (Supporting National Action and Planning on SLCPs) of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) is a collaborative programme aimed at supporting the efforts of CCAC partner countries to scale up action on SLCPs in a coordinated and prioritized way. This includes helping them identify and implement the most cost-effective pathways to large-scale implementation of SLCP measures, i.e. those that reduce near-term warming and improve air quality, human health and crop yields¹.

The SNAP initiative aims to address various challenges countries are facing to up-scale action. These include:

• Lack of awareness of the SLCP issue amongst the key government departments and stakeholders in the country;
• Lack of knowledge of SLCP emission sources, the magnitude of relevant emissions, and the potential for mitigation that hinders the ability to take informed decisions;
• A lack of institutional capacity to coordinate the implementation of SLCP measures;
• Scattered, uncoordinated action implementing measures that achieve the near-term climate, health and ecosystem benefits and no or limited planning that would embed SLCP policies within national strategies, plans and programmes;
• A lack of consideration of the role that regional and other international processes and agreements could play in the mitigation of SLCPs.