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We are seeing the beginnings of the impact of unchecked emissions globally.
Extreme rainfall and flooding in India, China and Germany have destroyed infrastructure and homes. Heat waves have sent temperatures soaring above 100o F (40 o C) for weeks, causing heat exhaustion and mortality. Wildfires ravage forests and smoke drifts across continents painting skies orange and grey, triggering asthma attacks and air quality alerts in cities. The toll of death and destruction from these capture headlines adding to the steady drum roll of disease and death due to air pollution year after year. In every instance the most vulnerable in our societies: children, women, the elderly, those with existing disease and marginalized populations – Indigenous People, those belonging to ethnic or racial minorities and low-income communities, bear a disproportionate burden. Read More »
We are facing an epic twin challenge: climate change and the air pollution crisis.
One way we can confront this challenge is by approaching transport solutions with both a climate and clean air lens – simultaneously targeting multiple pollutants that warm the planet and harm our health.
Transport, health and climate
Transport is one of the main sources of air pollution around the world, with direct effects on mortality as well as on respiratory and cardiovascular disease. These effects disproportionately impact vulnerable populations like children, the elderly and those with preexisting conditions. For example, a recent health impact assessment by Environmental Defense Fund estimated more than 2,500 lives are lost and 5,200 children develop asthma every year in the San Francisco Bay Area due to exposure to traffic-related pollution.
Transport-related sources of air pollution that damage our health are also sources of climate pollution. The extraction, transport and refining of hydrocarbons and the burning of gasoline, diesel or any other fuel to power our vehicles emits a cocktail of substances that harm both people and environmental health, as well as a mixture of greenhouse gases that heat the Earth.
With overlapping sources of pollution, the transportation sector presents a huge opportunity to achieve both climate and air pollution goals simultaneously.
The dangers of looking at climate without a clean air lens
Often climate and air quality goals are treated separately within a city or region, creating an artificial division and disconnected solutions. A city might have a climate plan and a distinct air pollution plan, run by different teams, which can inadvertently lead to harmful health outcomes.
For example, in the 1990s and 2000s in the European Union, climate policy encouraged drivers to switch to diesel vehicles. That policy was focused on reducing carbon pollution – without accounting for the significant amount of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution that diesel engines put into the air. According to the American Lung Association, NO2 is associated with increased inflammation of the airways that can cause:
Worsened cough and wheezing;
Reduced lung function;
Increased asthma attacks; and
Greater likelihood of emergency department and hospital admissions.
The pro-diesel policy led to a huge uptick in diesel-fueled cars on European roads, kicking off a new wave of air pollution that cities across the continent are still grappling with today. In London, for example, our research revealed how diesel pollution remains a huge source of the city’s air pollution, with diesel cars serving as the largest single source contributor to nitrogen oxides (NOx) pollution at London primary schools. NOx is a group of gases that includes NO2.
The benefits of an integrated approach
Fortunately, city leaders are beginning to address climate and air pollution goals simultaneously. For example, Medellin, Colombia launched an Integrated Air Quality Management Plan that addresses both climate pollutants and health-damaging air pollutants. The plan includes the implementation of a Low Emission Zone focused on reducing fine particulate matter pollution and the incorporation of 64 zero-emission buses to the city’s Bus Rapid Transit system.
Avoid trips in motorized vehicles and diminish distances travelled by both passenger and goods, through policies such as home office and other travel demand management measures, transit-oriented development, and logistics optimization.
Shift travel to sustainable mobility modes, by prioritizing investments on walking, cycling and public transport infrastructure, complemented by promotion strategies to ensure their preference by passengers, as well as to prioritize the use of efficient freight alternatives such as railways.
Improve the environmental performance of transport modes through energy efficiency, and ultra-low and zero emission technology and fuel systems.
Integrated climate and clean air solutions means more livable cities where people can breathe clean air, safely walk and cycle and access better and affordable public transport. It means optimized freight logistics, options to reduce commuting whenever possible and technologies and measures to reduce air pollution and carbon emissions. Integrated solutions mean using less-polluting vehicles and creating connected cities in which people can enjoy family and friends, go to school, work and have fun – all within a short distance.
We can tackle our twin challenge of climate and air pollution, with transport playing a key role in reducing emissions, protecting people’s health and achieving multiple other benefits for our lives and the planet.
Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, people turned to home deliveries to safely meet their needs, furthering the rise in demand for parcels, and, consequently, an increase of vans and trucks on the roads. The freight sector is energy-intensive with last mile delivery relying largely on polluting diesel vehicles – creating air and noise pollution, congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.
Cities need innovative freight solutions now more than ever to protect public health, transform the sector and contribute to a cleaner, more sustainable urban logistics system.
That’s why Environmental Defense Fund Europe (EDF Europe) is excited to partner with POLIS – a leading network of European cities and regions promoting innovative transport solutions – on a new collaboration for zero-emission zones for freight.
The freight opportunity
The freight sector – which includes transport trucks, delivery and service vans, construction vehicles and dustbin lorries – is a major part of city economies. Freight transport is also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. In the European Union (EU), trucks contribute 22% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from road transport, yet they only account for 2% of all vehicles on the road. Currently, vans are the fastest growing source of road transport emissions in the EU. Additionally, freight vehicles powered by fossil fuels also produce health-harming pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5).
There is huge potential to decarbonise the freight sector and improve the urban environment, and one pathway is zero-emission zones for freight. These zones only allow freight and delivery vehicles that are zero-emission (e.g., electric vans and cargo bikes) to enter – bringing benefits like lower congestion, safer roads, cleaner air and reduced carbon emissions.
The SURF project
Many European cities are beginning to incorporate freight into sustainable urban logistics plans, presenting an opportunity for EDF Europe and POLIS to support cities by providing guidance and tools to implement innovative transport measures.
The Sustainable Urban Freight (SURF) project aims to guide city planners, business leaders and other freight decision-makers in developing a strategy for sustainable freight transport. SURF is focused on the design and implementation of zero-emission zones for freight and employs a series of peer-to-peer learning activities, expert support and rapid studies or ‘Instant Projects’ with on-the-ground implementation.
Instant Projects
The Instant Projects are small-scale prototypes that will generate lessons to inform the wider urban freight community and create local, immediate impact. We are excited to announce the three successful applicants for the SURF Instant Projects:
Aarhus, Denmark: A port city with 280,000 residents
Project: Integrate urban freight transport in site-specific logistics plans in connection with large infrastructure projects near the central train station.
“The project will be a natural progression from the more strategic plans for transportation and logistics at a wide city level to a more operational plan for a specific geographic area where considerable challenges are faced. We hope that others will learn from our experience and work to transform cities in a way that allows for more sustainable logistics solutions,” – Louise Overvad Jensen, Engineer, Development Consultant
Karditsa, Greece: A flat, inland city with 40,000 residents
Project: Pilot deliveries for local businesses using e-cargo bikes with an emphasis on raising awareness and building partnerships.
“We are currently defining a strategy for decarbonising urban logistics throughout the city, so the SURF project arrives at the perfect time. Our local businesses are eager to promote sustainable mobility and cargo bikes present an excellent opportunity for expanding zero-emission deliveries,” – Natalia Tzellou, Head of the Department of Development Planning
Ravenna, Italy: A port city and regional capital with 160,000 residents
Project: Define a roadmap towards a zero-emission zone for freight and introduce a ‘Freight Quality Partnership’ as a permanent participatory process tool for stakeholder engagement.
“Ravenna is committed to making urban freight transport green, efficient and resilient. This project will allow us to work on zero-emission zones for freight focused in the city center and develop the potential to expand to the whole municipality.
This project will raise ambition and generate cascading effects that speed up the process towards decarbonisation and the vision of a more livable and accessible city,” – Nicola Scanferla, Manager, Senior Transport and Mobility
Tipping the scale
The total number of small and medium-sized cities in the EU far outweighs the number of large city centres. These cities can serve as an ideal ground for testing and implementing new transport strategies and services that are crucial for the most pressing mobility challenges. The three Instant Project cities, all small and medium-sized, will demonstrate solutions and pathways that other European towns and cities can replicate and scale up.
Many cities are rethinking how to move forward after the pandemic and create healthier communities. Reducing emissions and congestion from freight logistics is a critical pathway to a more sustainable transport system. The SURF project aims to advance clean air and climate goals through not only the Instant Projects but also by means of a Capacity Building Programme. The objective of this e-course is to raise awareness and equip policymakers, practitioners and operators with long-lasting capabilities to support the transition to zero-emission deliveries.
We look forward to sharing lessons, key results and tools from the Instant Projects later this year that will help other cities develop a roadmap to zero-emission freight and transform polluted urban roads, improve people’s health and protect the climate.
If you have experience in providing technical advisory support on urban freight, training or relevant studies, or you have a relevant project or study to showcase, please feel free to express your interest by means of this form to be considered for the capacity building e-course.
For a further introduction to the SURF project and to hear about what other European cities are doing to reduce the impacts of freight, you can watch the April 2021 webinar here.
Everybody deserves the right to breathe clean air. Yet air pollution is choking cities and communities around the world – a staggering 9 in 10 people breathe unhealthy air.
City leaders need to urgently identify and accelerate solutions across the world. That’s why the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is launching a bold initiative – called Clean Air Catalyst – to help cities around the world reduce air pollution by advancing solutions that protect health, promote equitable prosperity and tackle the climate crisis. Through a global consortium of organizations led by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Clean Air Catalyst will begin in two pilot cities: Indore, India, and Jakarta, Indonesia. In Jakarta, WRI Indonesia is the implementing organization.
To mark the initiative’s official launch, hundreds of people from around the world attended a virtual conversation on clean air, health and climate solutions with U.S. Senator Bob Menendez and USAID’s Karl Fickenscher, as well as representatives from partners and the pilot cities. Here’s what you need to know.
When we’re outside, either walking or driving, we’re instinctively looking out for traffic. “Look both ways when you cross the street,” is advice drummed into most children.
But even so, we all have blind spots, and we’re not aware of the present danger polluting cars and trucks bring into our daily lives.
Our new video shows that although air pollution from vehicle exhaust is invisible, its damage to our health is visible and deadly.
EDF’s Global Clean Air Initiative has spent years researching air pollution in cities around the world. Our pioneering work with Google Earth Outreach, academic, community and government partners in Oakland, Houston and London shows that levels of air pollution vary much more widely than was previously known. In Oakland, we now know that levels of air pollution can vary by up to eight times within one city block. We’ve been working to visualize local pollution and its impacts in order to support targeted policies for cleaner air especially in those communities hardest hit by pollution. But we also recognized the need to make the experience of pollution more visible and more personal to each one of us as we walk down a city street.
Animated Reality Video based on EDF data
We developed a new animated reality video showing the path that pollution takes from tailpipe into the body. Our video was shot in a location in Houston, Texas, in a residential community that lies adjacent to a major freeway where EDF measured high levels of particulates and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in our 2017-2018 hyperlocal air quality monitoring study, and where the residents experience elevated rates of adult asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease, and stroke compared to other neighborhoods in the city.
The video begins with a drone video shot gliding over a busy highway, where the pollution coming from cars and trucks is shown as a half-pipe expanding in 3D. The camera then focuses on a mother and her daughter (both actors) walking down a street–we follow them as they pass trucks and are engulfed in animated pollution particles from exhaust emissions.
Millions of pollution particles in each breath
Pollution is animated as yellow waves of pollution simulating swirling gases, and small, black and yellow animated dots to represent microscopic particles of pollution. According to Adam Nieman of Real World Visuals who worked on this project, a single breath at East Loop South in Houston may contain 18 million particles.1
“The number of particles per breath varies by location and the proximity to different sources of air pollution,” Ramon Alvarez, EDF’s associate chief scientist notes. Regardless of the precise location in an urban area, most people are unaware they can be breathing in millions of pollution particles with each breath.”
Health risks of pollution from transportation
In the video, the animated pollutants travel from tailpipe to trachea, and deep into the young girl’s lungs. EDF epidemiologist Maria Harris shared, “Even short-term exposure to diesel exhaust can cause health impacts, including headaches, dizziness, and eye, nose and throat irritation. Regular exposure to diesel exhaust over time can cause lung cancer, as well as heart disease and other respiratory diseases. Children, whose lungs are still developing, are especially at risk for the respiratory impacts of diesel exposure. Seniors or others with chronic health issues are also at higher risk for respiratory and cardiovascular effects.”
To reduce diesel exposure, Harris suggests trying to limit time walking, biking, or driving on roads with heavy diesel truck or bus traffic, and avoiding areas where diesel trucks or buses idle.
But if we are to build healthy and resilient communities, we need to dramatically cut the emissions from the burning of oil and gas used in transportation, especially cars and trucks.
Benefits for health and climate
In addition to producing harmful air pollution, cars and light trucks account for about 45 percent of all U.S. oil consumption and more than 20 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Globally, climate emissions from large vehicles are on pace to double in the next 30 years. To reverse this trend and transform large vehicles into a critical part of a 100% clean economy, the global fleet must complete a near-total transition to zero-emission trucks and buses.
Electric trucks can help protect driver’s health
Every day, trucks and buses carry the goods, packages and people that keep our economy running. Usually powered by diesel engines, they are among the dirtiest vehicles on the road.
In the video, the actor portraying a delivery driver is exposed to the invisible pollution. Truck drivers often have high occupational exposure to diesel exhaust, which may put them at elevated risk of lung cancer and cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Cabin air filtration systems can help reduce diesel exposure for truck drivers. But ultimately, the best approach for protecting drivers and the communities they drive through is to shift to electric trucks and buses.
With electric vehicles, a zero-emission future that benefits the environment, people and economy is possible.
Take Action for Healthier Solutions
Now that you’ve seen how dangerous air pollution is to our health, we invite you to join the virtual community assembled at GlobalCleanAir.org and help us bring cleaner air to communities around the world. Also, we hope you join the global conversation about public health and clean air on Twitter @EDFCleanAir.
On the site you’ll learn about the health impacts of different air pollutants, case studies on innovative air quality monitoring across the world, tools to implement community-wide strategies where you live, and tips we can all take to clean the air we breathe. We encourage you to visit, and sign up for our monthly newsletter and advocacy action alerts.
Video Script and Sources
Below are facts cited in the video script, listed with links to their sources.
What if invisible pollution became visible?
1. Around the world, nine out of 10 people breathe unhealthy air. (Source: World Health Organization)
2. FACTOID: Exhaust from [diesel and gasoline] cars and trucks contains pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter that can cause heart and lung disease. (Source: US EPA)
3. FACTOID: With every breath, a person on this street will inhale harmful gases and millions of tiny particles. (Source: EDF)
4. FACTOID: Particulates can penetrate deep into the lungs and even enter the bloodstream. Nitrogen dioxide can inflame airways and cause asthma attacks. (Source: American Lung Association)
5. FACTOID: About 4 million children worldwide develop asthma each year from breathing nitrogen dioxide. (Source: George Washington University)
6. Air pollution can cross the placenta and may harm babies’ brain development. (Source: Project TENDR)
Air pollution is invisible, but it damages our health and is sometimes deadly.
Healthier solutions are here.
1.The pollution particle count in the EDF Houston data (near the East Loop South highway) was 36,000 particles per cubic centimeter. The average ‘tidal volume’ of an adult breath is 0.5 litres, which means that a single breath at East Loop South would contain about 18 million pollution particles.
