One Atmosphere: Integrating Air Pollution and Climate Policy and Governance

Dear Colleagues,

Because climate change affects nearly all aspects of society, climate policies would arguably be stronger if they accounted for relationships with other sectoral policies. Similarly, energy, economic, social and other sectoral policies would be more robust if they factored in relationships with climate change. The potential gains from linking climate and other sectoral policies are well-recognized in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) processes, where there is clear emphasis on more integrated approaches to decision making. The case for integration is especially persuasive when it comes to climate change and air pollution policy: Not only are the issues two of the most critical health and sustainability challenges, greenhouse gases and air pollutants often come from the same emission sources and interact with each other in the atmosphere. To date, however, policies and governance arrangements reflecting this have lagged behind.

This Special Issue invites contributions that address the integration of air quality and climate change policy and governance. We especially encourage submission of articles that synthesize interdisciplinary knowledge and that can be understood by a wide range of academic disciplines: for example, social or natural science-oriented papers that include a strong policy perspective. Both research articles and review articles are welcome.

Contributions to this this Special Issue should address one (or both) of these two overarching areas.

I.  The international political setting: institutional frameworks, politics and actors

Who tackles air quality and climate change? How have institutional frameworks, such as the UNFCCC, the Montreal Protocol and the SDGs, shaped the governance of climate change and air quality and how do they overlap? What broader tendencies and developments can be observed for the integration of air quality and climate change policies?

II.   Concrete policy approaches: tools and best practices

From NDCs to city-level climate action plans, how have climate change and air quality been taken into account in an integrated manner? What can we learn from these experiences? How have tools for calculating co-benefits been applied, and what was their uptake among policy makers? Here, case studies from specific contexts (e.g., national, subnational, or other) are welcome and should be situated into a larger political context and/or discuss their relevance for a broader scientific community.

Dr. Kathleen Mar
Dr. Charlotte Unger
Dr. Eric Zusman
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Atmosphere is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.