Joint Bangladesh–Sweden Policy Seminar on Air Quality and Climate

Ministers from Bangladesh and Sweden and high level representatives, scientists, governmental and non-governmental organizations from 15 countries, both within the region of South Asia and internationally, and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) met in Dhaka on 17–18 September 2011 to participate in the Joint Bangladesh–Sweden Policy Seminar for the South Asian Region on Near-term Air Quality and Climate Benefit – Promoting International Co-operation and Facilitating Action.
The seminar was hosted jointly by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Bangladesh and the Ministry of Environment, Sweden (with the Minister Lena Ek participating) and co-organized by Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). The overall aim of the seminar was to share experience and practice to promote strategic action nationally, regionally and globally on short-lived climate forcers (SLCF). Several specific sources of SLCFs and ways to mitigate them were discussed at the seminar. For black carbon these included brick kilns, cook stoves, open biomass burning, and transportation which currently are responsible for a large fraction of the emissions in South Asia. Important sources for methane include: livestock, rice cultivation, coal mining, biomass burning, gas production, solid and waste water treatment.
See the programme for the Dhaka seminar.
Read a full report from the seminar.

The UNEP supported project Atmospheric Brown Cloud (ABC) has played a major role in the development of our understanding of the occurrence and impacts of SLCFs in Asia. In Sweden, the Dept. of Applied Environmental Science (ITM), and the Department of Meteorology (MISU) at Stockholm University have been closely involved in the ABC project. Associate Professor Örjan Gustafsson at ITM now coordinates a Sida funded partner driven Swedish-Asian collaboration project on ”Brown Air” in northern India during the period 2010-12. Örjan Gustafsson participated in the Dhaka seminar along with Prof. Henning Rodhe from MISU.  
More information about ITM and the ABC programme.
More information about MISU and the ABC programme