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

Background

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

The workshop has reported its conclusions to the 5^th meeting of the UNECE Task Force on Reactive Nitrogen (TFRN), which washeld back-to-back with the workshop on October 27^th, 2010.

Presentations

Presentations from the meeting can be found here.

Documents

• Informal document "Nitrogen management interactions with climate change:
  a policy brief to inform the Gothenburg Protocol revision" as reported to WGSR-47
• GAINS abatement costs spreadsheet
  • Version 1 [July 2010]
  • Version 2a  [July 2011]
  • Version 2b  [Sep 2011] ****latest update****
  • Supporting Report 'Integrated ammonia abatement – Modelling of emission control potentials and costs in GAINS'

Background documents for workshop parallel sessions and topics

• Introduction - Economic cost of nitrogen management in agriculture  (Oene Oenema)
• 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 (J Webb)
• Costs of NH₃ mitigation from housing systems (Carlos Piniero)
• Costs of low-N feeding strategies (Ad van Vuuren & Oene Oenema)
• Manure storage systems (Shabtai Bitmann)
  • Compilation of literature on storage covers
  • Texts and comments on Annex IX and Guidance Document, relating to Storage Covers
• Potential for co-benefits with measures to reduce GHG emissions **Please note that this is an early and incomplete draft, we post this now to aid further discussion at the meeting** (Dominic Moran)

Further supplementary background documents:

• Influence of measures for the control of ammonia emissions in the profitability of pig farms in Spain
• Latest version of the Guidance document for preventing and abating ammonia emissions from agricultural sources (informal document to WGSR-47) 
• 2009 Review on Ammonia from Manure Spreading (J Webb)
• Report of WGSR-47 (Reactive Nitrogen issues are discussed from bottom of page 5)
• AMMONIA EMISSION ABATEMENT MEASURES: Unit Cost of Measures for Agriculture (2002) [Martin Ryan]

Expected outcomes were

• 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