Abstract: Black carbon (BC) aerosol, a minor fraction constituent of atmospheric aerosols, is attracting increasing concern due to its impacts on air quality, human health, and particularly climate. Focusing on BC emission reduction, the paper gives a brief introduction of BC's sources and global distribution, evaluates the resulting decrease of BC emissions from such actions as global greenhouse gases (GHGs) reduction and local air quality regulation, and highlights other BC reduction approaches like control and improvement of combustion conditions, elimination of open biomass burning, and sequestration of BC by biomass pyrolysis. Some policy suggestions for China are also presented in response to the appeal for world-wide BC reduction.

Key words: black carbon, emission reduction, mitigation option, policy analysis