Over the weekend, I read, with great interest, Andy Revkin’s recent dotearth blog post about the Copenhagen Consensus.  The Copenhagen Consensus is shorthand for a research effort by a group of 8 leading economists, including 5 Nobel Laureates, which attempted to create a menu for resolving some of the world’s most pressing challenges in the most cost-effective manner.  Run by writer and gadfly Bjorn Lomborg (author of such controversial books as Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming), this project is bound to spark controversy.

Three of the top thirty issues are related to NRDC’s work to “Dump Dirty Diesels” in the U.S. and abroad. 

This got me thinking…

Here’s why:

Over the past year, I have started to notice that many people ask me what I’m up to, now that “we’ve cleaned up all of the diesels.”  I’m usually at a loss when asked this question, because I see dirty diesel trucks and construction equipment all over New York City, on the New Jersey Turnpike when I visit family in Pennsylvania, and on the tarmacs of every airport I visit while traveling for NRDC.  And when I have travelled to Mexico City, Sao Paolo, Delhi, or elsewhere, I am stunned at urban pollution levels that are several times as high as the most polluted day in New York City--pollution levels that are dominated by staggering levels of diesel particulate soot pollution.

So, on one level, the job of cleaning up the toxic soup of diesel emissions seems quite far along. Certainly, the regulatory story of cleaning up diesel pollution in the United States is one of the few, truly bright stars in the mostly dark sky of the Bush environmental record. 

In 2007, new diesel truck and bus engines eliminated at least 90 percent of their particulate soot pollution, thanks to an EPA rule signed by President Clinton in 2001 and then implemented by President Bush’s EPA. 

In 2004, President Bush went against stereotype when he signed another EPA rule that would ensure that future construction equipment, farm engines and industrial diesel engines would be comparably clean. 

Earlier this year, the Bush EPA did it again, finalizing a comparable rule to clean up locomotive and marine diesel engines. 

Together, these rules will eliminate more than 21,000 premature deaths and more than $160 billion in health costs every year, once all of today’s dirty diesel engines have been replaced by new engines that meet the new EPA rules.  

No question, these are major steps forward.

On the other hand, most of the diesels in use today are still the dirty type: so, we have to advance policies, programs, incentives and other mechanisms to accelerate the retirement, retrofitting, or replacement of these dirty diesels.  And, on this score, we have a long way to go. 

Here in New York, most of the transit buses are clean.  The clean-up of the MTA New York City Transit fleet has been a smashing success:  today’s fleet emits 97 percent less particulate soot pollution than it did in 1995, when NRDC successfully sued for the right to place ads on the buses that read “Standing behind this bus could be more dangerous than standing in front of it.”  

New York's air seems less diesel-clogged, and we're beginning to see long-term data trends to confirm this.  (Come back for more on this point in a few days, readers).

But, most diesel fleets have not followed the MTA’s lead.  For example, 90 percent of New York’s construction equipment and school buses (two fleets that have had a great deal of attention in recent years) still lack meaningful emission controls, despite city and state laws that require their clean-up.

Plus, we need to find more and more ways to adapt our programs (and other successful programs from around the world) to clean up the staggering numbers of dirty diesels in use around the world.  After all, the thick plumes of black soot from diesel buses in Mexico City, Sao Paolo, or Nairobi would be unrecognizable to New Yorkers who are now used to the MTA’s hybrid-electric buses.  

So, what’s the connection between the Copenhangen Consensus and the questions about diesel pollution being a solved problem?

It’s this:

The U.S. is on the path to clean diesels that will provide almost soot-free, efficient service in years to come.  But for most of the world’s population, diesel pollution will continue to be a major pollution problem, especially in urban areas.  It’s a key part of an urban pollution problem that is linked to 865,000 premature deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization.  The vast majority of these deaths occur in developing counties.  In fact, according to the Copenhagen Consensus folks, roughly three-quarters of these deaths occur in 15 counties, with 45 percent in China and India.

Diesel pollution is a solvable problem, and, without opining on anything else the Copenhagen Consensus covers (especially its reliance on some very controversial and problemmatic cost-benefit approaches), the Copenhangen Consensus outlines some of the most important steps to solving it:  switching to cleaner, ultra-low sulfur diesel fuels; retrofitting buses and other key urban fleets with soot-busting filters; adapting U.S. or European emissions standards to developing country contexts; and creating systems to ensure that vehicles that leave the factory at low-emissions levels stay that way throughout their useful lives.  In short, closing the gap between the developed and the developing world’s diesel vehicles.

Is the diesel job done? 

Unfortunately, despite the great progress in creating a regulatory framework to reduce diesel pollution in the U.S., the global answer is still, regrettably, “no.”