TFRN-5 & Workshop on "Costs of ammonia abatement and the climate co-benefits"

Background
This expert workshop, organised under the UNECE TFRN, and taking place on October 25th & 26th, 2010 in Paris, focuses on costs of ammonia abatement measures primarily in the agricultural sector. The workshop will deliver a contribution to the revision of the UNECE Gothenburg Protocol. In addition to abatement costs, experts will examine co-benefits of measures in agriculture to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the same time.

The workshop will report its conclusions to the 5th meeting of the UNECE Task Force on Reactive Nitrogen (TFRN), which is held back-to-back with the workshop on October 27th, 2010.


Please check back here for more information about the venue and location of the workshop, the workshop schedule and the registration form, which will be made available soon. The registration deadline for this workshop is Oct 1st 2010.

Call for experts
The workshop organisers would like to invite experts from the following fields to participate:

  • Agriculture
  • Engineering/technologies
  • Producers of agricultural equipment, service providers
  • Other expert groups under UNECE CLRTAP (e.g. EGTEI, TFIAM, IPPC/BREF)


Specific Topics

The following topics will be discussed during the workshop, both with background documents (see below), which will be made available before the workshop, and in parallel break-out groups during the workshop:

  • Cost of ammonia emission abatement from manure spreading and fertiliser application
  • Low-nitrogen feeding strategies
  • Animal housing techniques
  • Manure storage techniques, incl. processing (biogas, composting)
  • Potential for co-benefits with measures to reduce GHG emissions


Background documents

The following background documents are planned, with lead authors in brackets (tbc - to be confirmed):

  • Introduction (Mark Sutton)
  • Current cost estimates used in GAINS per unit of NH3 reduction (Mark Sutton, Zig Klimont, Wilfried Winiwarter)
  • Overview of current approaches in GAINS for estimating European wide NH3 mitigation costs (Zig Klimont, Wilfried Winiwarter)
  • Costs of NH3 mitigation from land spreading (tbc)
  • Costs of NH3 mitigation from housing systems (tbc)
  • Costs of low-N feeding strategies (tbc)
  • Costs of low-emission manure storage systems (tbc)
  • Potential for co-benefits with measures to reduce GHG emissions (tbc)

Information for Background Document Lead Authors: Template in MS WORD format and as a PDF

Expected outcomes

  • Overview document reporting to TFRN-5 on overall cost estimates and potential climate co-benefits of NH3 mitigation
  • Report of TFRN-5 to WGSR as a contribution to supporting the revision of the Gothenburg Protocol
  • Contribution to updating the Guidance Document for the Control of Ammonia Emissions of the GB Protocol
  • Working group synthesis reports and summary (5-6 pages, incl. 0.5-1 page executive summary each)
  • Published book with workshop proceedings