South Asia’s dramatic improvement in air quality in 2022 will reduce global pollution. File | Photo credit: RV Murthy
amazing improvement in Air quality in South Asia A new report on Wednesday said global pollution will fall in 2022, with favourable weather a likely factor.
But the region still breathes some of the world’s most polluted air, losing more than 3.5 years of life expectancy to its residents. Life Expectancy The annual Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) warns that average air quality is deteriorating.
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And globally, most countries either have no pollution standards or are failing to meet the standards they have set, leaving their citizens exposed to air quality that is causing a wide range of health problems.
Air pollution in South Asia has been increasing annually for the past two decades, but satellite data for 2022 – the most recent year available – showed a stunning 18% drop.
“Every country in the region recorded a decline except Sri Lanka,” according to the report prepared by the Energy Policy Institute (EPIC) of the University of Chicago.
“Although it is difficult to determine with certainty what caused the decline in PM2.5 levels in South Asia, it is safe to say that favourable meteorological conditions may have played a role,” the report said, referring to fine particles that can penetrate deep into the body.
The widespread nature of the decline, as well as above-average rainfall across the region in 2022, supports that theory.
“Only time will tell whether policy changes are having any impact,” the report says, warning that people in South Asia are still breathing air eight times more polluted than what the World Health Organization considers safe.
“Continued observation, efforts towards policy enforcement, and monitoring the effects of policy interventions will be critical to understanding and sustaining these reductions,” the report says.
Global air pollution fell by 9 percent, led by a drop in South Asia, while poor air quality increased elsewhere, including the Middle East and North Africa, with concentrations rising by 13 percent compared to a year earlier.
The report warns that lack of ground-level air quality data is hampering policy formulation and implementation.
“Highly polluted countries with little or no data on air quality often get caught in a vicious feedback cycle where a lack of data leads to little attention or policy investment in the issue, which in turn reduces demand for data,” said Christa Hasenkopf, director of EPIC’s Clean Air Program.
Earlier this year, the center launched a $1.5 million fund to install air quality monitors that provide open data around the world.
Despite its enormous impact on human health, air pollution receives relatively little funding.
For example, the report states that in some of Africa’s most polluted countries, air pollution “poses a more serious threat to life expectancy than HIV/AIDS, tropical diseases, malaria, or access to water, sanitation and handwashing.”
However, there are some good things too, including China’s remarkably successful efforts to tackle polluted air.
It took steps such as limiting the number of cars in major cities, reducing the capacity of heavy industries, and banning new coal plants in some areas.
AQLI said it “has reduced air pollution by 41% since 2013, meeting its national standards and increasing the life expectancy of its citizens by an average of two years.”
Still, pollution in China also remains five times higher than World Health Organization guidelines, and the benefits of Beijing’s measures are unevenly spread.
Air quality remains poor in many major provinces, and in some it has even improved since 2013.