‘Dieselgate’ impacted climate as well as human health

Improved diesel technology, combined with generally better fuel economy, has led to the widespread belief that diesel vehicles are more environmentally friendly than their petrol counterparts.

But a new study shows diesel cars with ‘defeat devices’ may have no environmental benefit over petrol cars.

The research looked at the on-road driving impact of Volkswagen (VW) cars, compared with the results from laboratory tests.

While previous studies have looked at the health impact of high nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from diesel cars with defeat devices, this research published in Environmental Research Letters is the first to examine the effect on climate change.

It had two key findings. It showed that, depending on the driving conditions, diesel vehicles with defeat devices can create extra temperature impacts over time.

Second, it found that the climatic advantage of “clean diesel” can disappear if the vehicles have defeat devices.

Dr. Katsumasa Tanaka, from the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Japan, is the lead author. He said: “The potential impact is significant. We know VW tuned vehicles to pass lab tests while breaking the respective emission standards on the road, to improve driving performance and fuel consumption. As many as 11 million VW vehicles worldwide gained approval in the lab tests by relying on cheating software. That amounts to 40 per cent of the VW passenger cars sold in the EU from 2009 - 2015.”

The research team compared the emissions data of two defeat device-equipped VW diesel vehicles – one in ‘compliance’ or laboratory mode, the other in non-compliance or ‘real world driving’ mode.

They then used climate modelling to simulate the temperature response to the vehicles' emissions over one and 15 years; a vehicle’s assumed lifetime.

They found that the climate effects caused by the non-compliant vehicles over a year showed more complex changes than those shown in the lab tests. This results from excess NOx emissions from on-road driving, which manifest as competing climate effects over various timescales.

Dr. Marianne T. Lund, a co-author at CICERO Center for International Climate Research in Norway, said: “The picture is complex. The effects from on-road emissions show themselves first as strong short-term warming. This results from tropospheric ozone (O3) responding to excess NOx. In the medium term, the warming drops due to a reduction in methane concentration and the decay in short-term ozone response.

“But this is followed by long-term warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions, as the methane cooling effect disappears.”

The results show the extra climate impacts of the non-compliant vehicles, shown as the difference between the impacts of the on-road and lab results over 15 years, depend on the timescale as well as the underlying driving patterns.

The non-compliant diesel vehicles produce larger warming climate impacts in the short term than compliant diesel vehicles of equal characteristics, but create smaller impacts in the mid-term.

Yet, differences in the long-term temperature changes, determined by the differences in CO2 and unaffected by NOx, are inconclusive regarding the direction of change.

The question of 'clean diesel' offering an environmental advantage is also affected by defeat devices, as well as timescale and driving conditions.

Dr. Tanaka explained: "Emissions from diesel vehicles in compliance mode show smaller climate impacts (six to 20 per cent less) than comparable petrol vehicles. But when we look at the results from diesel vehicles in non-compliance mode, we find a slightly larger long-term warming under urban driving conditions, as opposed to a smaller longer term warming under highway driving conditions. This means that the presence of defeat devices undermines the legitimacy of arguments for 'clean diesel'.

He concluded: "Our study supports the direction of new emission regulations requiring more data from on-road operations. Designing next-generation policies tackling diesel vehicle exhaust requires input from various perspectives, as well as interdisciplinary discourse.

“The climate impacts need addressing as one of the central issues together with: human health; climate policies; engine technologies; regulatory mechanisms; legitimacy; and ethics to inform policymaking associated with diesel vehicle exhaust."

ENDS

Contact
For an advance copy of the paper, further information, or spokesperson contact details, please contact: Simon Davies, Senior PR Officer IOP Publishing. Email [email protected] Tel: +44 (0)1179301110

About Environmental Research Letters
ERL covers all environmental science, providing a coherent and integrated approach including research articles, perspectives and reviews. The journal’s coverage reflects the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of environmental science and recognizes the wide range of contributions to the development of methods, tools and evaluation strategies relevant to the field.

About IOP Publishing
IOP Publishing provides publications through which leading-edge scientific research is distributed worldwide. IOP Publishing is central to the Institute of Physics, a not-for-profit society. Any financial surplus earned by IOP Publishing goes to support science through the activities of the Institute. Go to http://ioppublishing.org (link below) or follow us @IOPPublishing.

About the Institute of Physics
The Institute of Physics is a leading scientific society. We are a charitable organisation with a worldwide membership of more than 50,000, working together to advance physics education, research and application. We engage with policymakers and the general public to develop awareness and understanding of the value of physics and, through IOP Publishing, we are world leaders in professional scientific communications. Visit us at www.iop.org (link below). Follow IOP on Twitter via @PhysicsNews.

Published: 03 Apr 2018

Institution:

Contact details:

Temple Circus, Temple Way, Bristol, BS1 6HG

+44 (0)117 929 7481
Country: 
News topics: 
Academic discipline: 
Content type: 
Collaborator: 
Websites: 

http://ioppublishing.org/ IOP Publishing website http://www.iop.org/ The Institute of Physics website http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aab18c Research paper

Reference: 

Paper: The final version of ‘Climate effects of non-compliant Volkswagen diesel cars’ by Berntsen et al (2018 Environ. Res. Lett. vol 13, issue 4, article no 044020) will be freely available at 0930 BST on Tuesday April 3 2018 at http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aab18c DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aab18c