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Aerosol Technology (Climate Change)

I could not agree more. Having just set the world's first carbon budget in this Parliament I am more than aware of just how stretching our targets are. It is important to get the context and to see what the contribution might be, which is what I am currently doing. A reaction with nitrogen oxides in the lower atmosphere produces ground-level ozone and other photochemical oxidants. It is worth bearing in mind that we have identified around 200 different VOCs that can contribute to ozone formation. Some are more reactive and so cause more ozone to form than others. If present at high enough levels, ozone can be harmful to human health and damage vegetation. Ozone is also a greenhouse gas, so VOCs have an indirect, though small, effect on the resultant warming of the atmosphere. The hydrocarbons in LPG have a low global warming potential, owing to their indirect effects on ozone and also methane, but the warming caused by VOC emissions from aerosols is only slight. Although their environmental impact is relatively small, the Government welcome any further reductions in aerosol emissions of VOCs into the atmosphere. We are willing to hear direct from any company that has developed aerosol products that are potentially beneficial to the environment, such as those based on alternative propellant systems using compressed gas, so that we can consider whether to factor them in to our environmental policy as appropriate. We are interested in being informed about the activated carbon and carbon dioxide propellant system to which the hon. Gentleman referred in this debate.