Global Clean Air

New research shows the sources of fine particle pollution vary from country to country—our response should, too

By Ananya Roy / Published: December 17, 2021

While the COVID-19 pandemic has dominated headlines, another invisible and insidious health threat continues to rage, causing lost workdays, emergency room visits and hospitalizations. Fine particle air pollution (PM_2.5) is the sixth-highest risk factor for deaths globally, accounting for nearly four million deaths in 2019 alone, according to the Health Effects Institute’s (HEI) State of Global Air. A million of these deaths are the direct result of the burning of fossil fuels. Air pollution is a global public health crisis, and we need to take urgent steps to address it.

To mount an effective fight against air pollution—and PM_2.5 in particular—we need a better understanding of its sources and impacts, as they vary dramatically from country to country and community to community. This week, HEI released a new report that sheds light on the issue. The “Global Burden of Disease from Major Air Pollution Sources (GBD MAPS)” provides the first comprehensive analysis estimating major sources of air pollution for every country in the world. The study team, led by Dr. Erin McDuffie and Dr. Randall Martin of Washington University in St. Louis, and Dr. Michael Brauer at The University of British Columbia, found that:

Fossil fuel combustion contributed to more than one million deaths globally in 2017. Half of that was due to coal combustion; the other came from oil and gas emissions.
Major sources of PM₅vary by country and region, and air pollution impacts differ across the globe.
While fossil fuel combustion made up most of the PM₅ across industrialized nations of the global north, windblown dust was a major source of PM_2.5 in African countries.
A majority of outdoor PM₅ health effects are due to human activities related to the burning of fuel for heating, transportation, industry and other energy needs, suggesting that integrating air quality, energy, and climate policies is likely to bring substantial health benefits.

Different sources had varying impacts across countries.

While coal, oil and gas combustion resulted in a large burden of disease due to air pollution, the fractional share of these sources varied across countries. Residential contributions ranged from 4.0% in Egypt to 33.1% in Indonesia, while energy and industrial emissions combined ranged from 3.2% in Nigeria to 27.3% in India.

The report also tallies the fractional contribution of fuels across different sectors to PM_2.5 attributable premature deaths at the country level. This provides additional insight for national action plans to reduce the health burden of fine particulate air pollution. For example, coal from the energy sector contributes to a greater share of attributable deaths (20.5%) in South Africa than from the industry sector (2.7%). The opposite is true for China, where 4.7% of attributable deaths come from coal associated with the energy sector, while 9.1% come from industry sector coal. The figure from the HEI McDuffie et al report shown here, demonstrates the varying impacts of sources across different countries.

Figure reproduced from the HEI GBD MAPS 2021 report (Mcduffie et al 2021)

Not everyone breathes the same air within countries or even cities

The report also found a large variation in air pollution and its impacts on health within countries. In 2019, there was a 3-fold variation in economic losses due to premature deaths and disease attributable to air pollution between the states in India. For example, in Pune (where my parents live), annual average fine particulate air pollution levels were 40 µg/ m3 (the Indian National Ambient Air Quality Standard for PM_2.5), while concentrations were below 20 µg/m3 in Kozhikode and over 140 µg/m3 in New Delhi. Differences in economic activity, energy sources, population distribution, agricultural and cooking practices as well as atmospheric patterns, can all cause variations in health burdens across cities .

We know that variation within cities may be even greater. Environmental Defense Fund and our partners found a 5-fold variation in health impacts of particle pollution in the San Francisco Bay Area. In Houston and London, we’ve focused on identifying sources that contribute to pollution hot spots. We are now conducting similar work in cities around the world .

To develop smart strategies to improve public health, policymakers need a better picture of air pollution at all scales—from the country perspective down to the city level. Knowing where pollution is coming from, who it impacts and who is responsible for it provides communities, governments and companies with highly actionable information they can use to develop policies that make meaningful impacts.

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Profile: Kaushik Hazarika, Project Manager, Clean Air Catalyst Indore

By EDF Web Team / Published: November 29, 2021

Kaushik Raj Hazarika is an advisor for EDF’s air quality work in India and a Project Manager for Clean Air Catalyst in Indore. Clean Air Catalyst is a flagship program launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development and a global consortium of organizations led by World Resources Institute and Environmental Defense Fund.

With a population of 3.4 million, Indore is the commercial hub and most populous city in the state. The city is not meeting the national government’s ambient air quality standards. Reducing air pollution to the recommended levels could save lives, while slowing climate change and addressing social inequities.

Kaushik and Clean Air Catalyst team members are working with local stakeholders and key government organizations like the Indore Municipal Corporation and the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board to tackle the root causes of the city’s pollution.

Kaushik says, “I find Indore’s achievement of being declared the cleanest city for solid waste in India inspiring. It is a testament to the dedication of the public representatives, government officials and general public, and demonstrates what we all can achieve by well-concerted public action. My hope is that Clean Air Catalyst will spur similar innovation and success, making Indore an air quality role model for other South Asian cities.”

Kaushik has been a climate and environment professional in India for over a decade now, working on different issues related to the broader sustainability agenda including natural resource management, forestry, clean energy, circular economy, waste management and now air pollution after joining EDF and leading Clean Air catalyst in India.

Kaushik has found more success driving the climate narrative into public consciousness in his work to achieve better air quality due to the immediate health risks of air pollution. He hopes to use his previous climate experience in his current work to shape Source Awareness, a key aspect of the Catalyst methodology and achieve better air quality apart from highlighting the immediate health risks of air pollution. He says, “Addressing these issues with an approach backed by strong scientific research is incredibly timely and relevant, and I am very hopeful about what Clean Air Catalyst can achieve.”

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Air Pollution Research Reveals Exposure Disparities in Bay Area

By Maria Harris / Published: November 19, 2021

After working with EDF and partners to map hyperlocal pollution in Oakland, CA using Google Street View vehicles, researchers Dr. Joshua Apte (University of California, Berkeley) and Dr. Sarah Chambliss (University of Texas at Austin) collected additional mobile data across the San Francisco Bay Area to expand understanding of street-level air quality and disparities in pollution exposure. Their new paper, “Local- and regional-scale racial and ethnic disparities in air pollution determined by long-term mobile monitoring” was published in September in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. It builds on previous work in Oakland published by Dr. Apte in 2017. I recently spoke with Dr. Chambliss about the latest findings.

What were the key findings of this new research?

Dr. Chambliss: In this study, we broadened the geographic scope of our mobile pollution measurements beyond Oakland to neighborhoods across the Bay Area. Throughout the other areas we drove across the SF Bay Area, we saw some of the same types of patterns that we originally described in the original Oakland study: steep increases in concentrations near major roads (especially for nitric oxide, or NO) and some additional localized peaks that could be attributable to other localized sources that we are still working to identify.

We also saw evidence that the types of sources contributing to local pollution differ among study areas: some areas have more prominent peaks for black carbon, others for NO. The mix of pollution is different in different areas around the Bay. We saw that some neighborhoods were much cleaner than others, and some neighborhoods had higher levels of some pollutants but were not higher for every pollutant. Because we had looked at so many different types of neighborhoods, we saw an opportunity to extend the Oakland analysis by also asking: Who lives in the neighborhoods that are more polluted, and how do pollution patterns compare to or interact with patterns of racial/ethnic segregation that persist in the Bay Area?

After connecting the street-level air pollution data with census data, we found that there were systematic differences in pollution exposure across racial/ethnic groups. Specifically, Black and Hispanic/Latino people had 10-30% higher average exposure to NO, nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ultrafine particles (UFP) than the population as a whole, while white non-Hispanic residents had 20-30% lower average exposure. The neighborhoods where we measured the cleanest air tended to have higher proportions of white residents, as well. In contrast, neighborhoods where more people of color lived tended to have higher concentrations not just near roadways but in areas of the neighborhood we would consider “background” locations: residential areas where we expect conditions to be cleaner.

Why do these disparities in air pollution exposure matter?

Dr. Chambliss: Air pollution can have major short-term and long-term health impacts. Studies have shown linkages among the group of pollutants we looked at–NO and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), black carbon, and ultrafine particles- with hospital visits, chronic lung and heart disease, with particular risks for the health of newborns and the elderly.

Because air pollution causes systemic inflammation, its impacts spread far beyond the lungs: there is evidence of air pollution affecting cognitive development and diabetes prevalence, for example. Those exposed to higher air pollution are at higher risk of a wide range of health problems. When disparities fall along lines of socioeconomic status or other social vulnerabilities, the health risks caused by air pollution can compound with issues like lower access to medical care or less capacity to handle the financial burden of health issues.

How did you collect such detailed street-level pollution data?

Dr. Chambliss: We had several partnerships that allowed us to achieve this level of coverage. A partnership with Google Earth Outreach allowed us to use Google Street View vehicles to drive “blackout” patterns, where we drove down every road in a study area each time we visited. We also partnered with Aclima, Inc., who installed laboratory-grade instrumentation in these cars and kept the equipment maintained and calibrated for near-daily driving.

We drove two of these “mobile laboratories” nearly every weekday over a 32-month period, visiting different neighborhoods each day and revisiting each neighborhood every 6 weeks or so to collect measurements representing different seasonal conditions.

What kind of policy implications do you see for this work?

Dr. Chambliss: That there are higher pollution levels in neighborhoods with more people of color isn’t a new finding in and of itself, but the level of spatial detail that we could bring to this analysis provided some additional insights. Often, within one neighborhood or several adjoining neighborhoods, there is a wide range in the outdoor pollution levels at different addresses. And these differences do not typically lie along racial/ethnic lines. It’s only when you zoom out to look at city-wide patterns of segregation that you see racial/ethnic disparity in exposures. This is strongly influenced by neighborhoods where the lowest levels of pollutants like NO₂ and UFP are higher than even peak levels in cleaner neighborhoods.

This gives us an indication of how policies could be improved to geographically target pollution mitigations to better address disparity and promote environmental justice. Look specifically at communities where the baseline pollution levels are higher and where residents are predominantly people of color. This segregation is often connected with historically racist policies such as discriminatory lending policies or racial covenants built into housing deeds. While those policies may have ended, they leave a persistent legacy placing communities of people of color in areas with higher pollution and greater environmental health risks. To help reverse these patterns of environmental injustice, it’s critical to work to clean up the air pollution sources within those neighborhoods.

What does work like this mean for the future of hyperlocal air pollution monitoring?

Dr. Chambliss: An implication of how localized some pollutant peaks are – a phenomenon that mobile monitoring is particularly suited to measure – is that when you cut emissions from a particular source or type of source, you will see major benefits very close to that source but more moderate reductions everywhere else. If you want to evaluate the full benefits of such a policy, making measurements with fuller spatial coverage may show a magnitude of improvement that wouldn’t be reflected at a single fixed monitoring site. For example, anti-idling policies would help specifically at locations with a lot of truck activity, like ports or warehouses, but it may not be obvious from the outset where the most idling occurs. Mobile monitoring is a way to find those areas that really benefit.

Another thing this research shows is how important it is to spread out measurements over a broader geography as much as possible, given time and resource constraints. It would be great to do a similar study in another US city, because each one has a unique history of growth, industrialization and zoning, and segregation or discriminatory housing policies. It would also be interesting to look at cities outside of the US where urban development patterns, both demographic and land-use related, are much different.

What’s next for you in this field?

Dr. Chambliss: We are continuing to work with these mobile monitoring data to gather further insight into what features of the urban environment lead to pollution hot spots.

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How the Build Back Better Act will help clear the air

By Aileen Nowlan / Published: November 3, 2021

With the Build Back Better Act, Congress has the opportunity to make an unprecedented investment in public health and the climate, particularly in the reduction of harmful air pollution, which disproportionately harms low-income residents and communities of color.

While many cities across the country have experienced an overall improvement in air quality, residents in neighborhoods from West Oakland, California to the 5th Ward in Houston must still fight for cleaner air, as heavy truck traffic and industrial pollution continue to seriously impact their health.

woman on ladder installing small air pollution monitor on telephone poll

Hyperlocal air quality monitors have demonstrated how air quality levels can vary street by street.

Air pollution is not evenly distributed across the places that people live, work, play and worship. A critical step in better understanding and taking action to reduce these inequities in air pollution impacts is to fill in the many gaps in our national air quality monitoring network.

Historic investments in air quality monitoring

This bill would help eliminate air pollution blindspots by providing at least $170 million for direct air quality monitoring, a near doubling of federal investment in such monitoring, which has dropped by 20% in real terms over the past 16 years.

It also allocates $50 million to monitor and reduce air pollution in schools that serve students from low-income communities.

This funding has the opportunity to make a tremendous impact on the health and wellbeing of children, as 1 in 5 of all new childhood asthma cases in the United States are attributable to traffic related air pollution. Asthma is a leading cause of school absenteeism, accounting for about 14 million absences each school year, or one-third of all school days missed.

Data-focused investing

The Build Back Better Act also recognizes that historically we have been investing in activities that cause or mitigate pollution with our eyes closed. The bill invites, and in some cases requires, insights about local pollution in order to apply for billions in grant funding available to mitigate pollution.

Specifically, the bill provides $5 Billion in planning and implementation for pollution reduction, and requires applications to include ‘‘(A) the degree to which greenhouse gas air pollution is projected to be reduced [in] low-income and disadvantaged communities.” Communities would be required to demonstrate how they will verify that pollution is decreasing after receiving the grants.

It also offers $4 Billion to mitigate or remediate the negative impacts of transportation, starting by monitoring or assessments of local and ambient air quality, transportation emissions, and hot spots of extreme heat or elevated air pollution.

These funds could be especially helpful in communities that bear the greatest cumulative burdens of pollution–those adjacent or downwind of major industries, plagued by heavy truck traffic and/or surrounded by highways–the consequence of systemic racism.

To address this, the bill includes $3 Billion in Environmental And Climate Justice Block Grants, which could include monitoring and mitigation of air pollution, and facilitate engagement of disadvantaged communities in state and federal public processes.

Opportunities to harness new technology

This bill comes at a time when technology and analytics like satellites and low-cost air pollution monitors are making it simpler to track pollution and its impacts. These insights will be critical to the accountability required by the grants and can help transform our understanding of where air pollution comes from, what it does to local health, and who is responsible.

With this historic funding, we can put the new, innovative methods to use at far greater scale, fueling a better understanding of how air pollution impacts health at the neighborhood level. With richer, more reliable data in hand, policymakers can focus mitigation efforts on areas with the highest burden and turn to solutions that have the potential for the greatest impact, especially for those who are most at risk.

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Digging into Freight Pollution Data in London

By Greg Slater / Published: November 1, 2021

Road transportation is a major source of air pollution in London, with heavy goods vehicles one of the top contributors of pollutants that harm people’s health.

The thinktank, Centre for London, has been conducting research this year to look “at how we can create smarter, fairer and more sustainable freight and logistics ecosystems.”

Centre for London was keen to understand more about freight activity in London, like daily activity patterns and how it was affected by COVID-19 lockdowns in the last year. These questions aren’t easy to answer with publicly available data sources. Using supportive traffic and congestion datasets, we were able to produce an analysis that provides a closer look at freight across the capital city – and a special focus on a particular neighbourhood in South London to get a more granular picture.

Here’s what we found. Read More »

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Take Back Health In Your City: WHO’s Dr. Maria Neira’s argument for reducing emissions

By Sergio Sanchez / Published: October 25, 2021

When the World Health Organization (WHO) released its new Global Air Quality guidelines earlier this month for the first time since 2005, it cited an overwhelming body of evidence showing how air pollution severely impacts health at even lower concentrations than previously understood. And while concentrations still largely exceed levels published by the WHO in 2005 for several pollutants in many areas around the world, the organization has now set more aggressive targets along with a phased approach in the hopes it can encourage countries to redouble their efforts to abate air pollution for protecting public health.

The price of inaction is clear: The burden of disease from both ambient and household air pollution exposure continues to grow. Children’s health is largely impaired by reduced long growth and function, respiratory infections and aggravated asthma resulting from breathing poor air quality. In adults, major causes of premature death attributable to air pollution are heart disease and stroke, and there is emerging evidence of diabetes and neurodegenerative conditions, among other effects. Every year, exposure to air pollution causes some 7 million premature deaths and results in the loss of millions more healthy years of life.

In a recent conversation, Dr. Maria Neira, the WHO’s Director of Public Health, Environment and Social Determinants, suggested that policymakers examine what they will gain from implementing stricter air quality standards, in addition to the consequences of inaction.

Dr. Maria Neira, World Health Organization

Health benefits of taking action

Dr. Neira argues that we should reframe our approach to focus on the multiple benefits of reducing pollution. “If the world stops burning fossil fuels, we will see an incredible benefit to public health,” Dr. Neira said. Not only could we prevent a significant percentage of chronic diseases, she says, “You could have more walking in the city. You could have more physical activity. You could take back your city.”

Dr. Neira, who wanted to be a physician since she was a child growing up in Spain, began her career as an endocrinologist, providing her a fist-hand look at the body’s feedback to endocrine disruptors like air pollution emissions. She later served as the medical director for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) in refugee camps in El Salvador and Honduras. That experience prompted her to work in public health. “I couldn’t accept the fact that I was treating patients and then sending them back into conditions that were causing diseases,” she says. “I realized I could make a bigger impact if I worked on sanitation problems or children breathing poor air.”

Slowing climate change, benefitting public health

Now, charged with the leading of the WHO prevention arm, Dr. Neira examines the multitude of factors that can influence health, including diet and the environment. She hopes that in addition to adopting stricter air quality standards, countries will begin to look more closely at the health benefits associated with combating climate change. She argues that the cost savings in health—from the reduction in chronic diseases to increased productivity—would outweigh the investments needed to end our dependence on fossil fuels. Showing that kind of positive outcome in a similar way that current models illustrate economic benefits, would be “the indicator we would dream about.”

While climate change and air pollution impact vulnerable populations more acutely, Dr. Neira notes that dirty air and its impacts are harmful across all sectors of society. “In Europe we have 400,000 deaths every year due to air pollution.” When you add the cost of related hospital visits and the loss of work days, the impacts represent an overall cost to society, she says. Cities known for higher levels of air pollution may even find themselves less attractive to businesses, if they cannot lure top talent to live with their families, she says, citing Shanghai as a prime example.

Following positive examples

Social distancing requirements for COVID-19 brought many cities like Bogota, Columbia to expand bicycling infrastructure.

Countries like Canada and those in Scandinavia are trending in the right direction because their clean air and climate policies, Dr. Neira says. She also noted that mayors with the political will to transform their cities with low emission, sustainable interventions are seeing positive results. Bogota, Colombia, and Bilbao, Spain, are examples of industrialized cities that are now becoming “a pleasure to see.” However, “national politicians need to go farther.”

Need for additional research

While the WHO cited a wealth of research in its decision to lower emissions standards, Dr. Neira says scientists still have plenty of areas for future study. “I think most of the research now needs to go to interventions,” she says. “And whether we can prove those interventions are impactful or not.” Measuring health gains from changing traffic patterns or agricultural practices could help determine which interventions countries adopt. Researchers should examine whether interventions are cost-effective, how soon their impacts can be measured and how beneficial they are to both the environment and human health. “We have to prioritize those that have the biggest public health impact in the shortest possible period of time,” she concluded.

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Global Clean Air Profile: Rodolfo Lacy Tamayo, Director of the Environmental Directorate at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

By Sergio Sanchez / Published: October 5, 2021

Rodolfo Lacy Tamayo is the Director of the Environmental Directorate at the OECD, where he studies the intersection of land use change, housing and urban planning. Lacy and his colleagues are determining how the development of cities can change to reduce the burden of air pollution from vehicles.

How did you get involved in clean air work?

In 1977, when I was a student at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City, World Environment Day was celebrated with a week of panels and exhibitions about environmental problems in Mexico. One of them was the air pollution problem in the valley of Mexico. At that time there were no catalytic converters, and we used leaded gasoline. We suffered from traffic congestion and high air pollution. In the valley of Mexico, Lake Texcoco had been drained, changing the ecosystem. We were suffering from dust storms, heat waves, and of course, air pollution problems that were related to sulfur dioxide. Then, the amount of uncontrolled air pollution sources was huge, and air pollution problems were very critical.

I was a student and was very interested in working on those problems, so I started to focus my studies in environmental engineering with a specialty in air quality.

Later, I was in charge of the first comprehensive air pollution program in Mexico City and the citywide air quality monitoring network, in addition to enforcement teams and the first smog inspection program for the whole metro area.

Why do you find this work so critical, especially today?

Many of the technological advances related to air pollution control in the world are helping us now to address the global challenges related to climate change. We started with very small initiatives at local level and then found out that the pollution we were trying to tackle was related to global problems that are transforming the planet in general. I think I found in this discipline the way to really help my community, my city, my country and now the climate.

How should leaders couple climate and clean air goals?

I think leaders are seeing this problem even today with a siloed approach. But everything is related to the way we are using our resources, the energy we are selecting to give us the comfort we are enjoying and the way we are addressing technological challenges. If I need to move people from one place to another, I can choose a car as a mode of transportation that is very polluting. Or, I can design something that really solves the problem without affecting the environment or ecosystems. Now we are realizing that electric cars, vehicles in general—ships, boats, airplanes—could not only reduce but eliminate air pollution problems in our cities. We knew it several decades ago, but the siloed approach and the lack of comprehensive vision of how we can improve our quality of life without breaking all ecological cycles has been a failure. It’s clear for many people now that we have abused the planet—we have used it in an unsustainable way. We have to change the way we are living and satisfying our needs; otherwise, we will destroy the planet very soon.

How can organizations align funding to achieve both clean air and climate benefits simultaneously?

There is a revolution in the financial system, because the governing decisions in central banks and financial institutions are changing. Now we can adopt regulations to really promote low-carbon technologies or technologies that are not emitting any pollutants. Many financial institutions recently stopped financing or investing in coal. This is a new attitude of central banks and the financial system. The changes that we are now seeing are related to consciousness, the knowledge we have about how very profitable investments are really destroying ecosystems, our way of life and our quality of life. So instead of promoting and subsidizing oil and gas industries, mining activities and petrochemical corporations that are producing very harmful and toxic substances and materials, the financial system is willing to invest in technologies that we must massively deploy to protect natural resources.

I think that the financial system is changing, and we can see it is avoiding climate risks. They are requiring different kinds of assessments to make decisions about what kind of portfolios they will be promoting. That these institutions are now making good decisions for the future is a positive sign.

What gives you reason to hope?

Under the Paris Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol, we were addressing 6 greenhouse gases. But recently, with the advances of science, the IPCC has started to talk about 13 different climate forcers. We must reduce emissions of those climate forcers that are increasing the temperature and exacerbating the greenhouse gas effect, including short-term pollutants like black carbon. We have to expand the scope of work of many of the policies that countries are implementing now. Otherwise, we will not be able to tackle the climate challenge or improve the quality of life of people in cities, because we are not really reducing those pollutants that are affecting air quality and the climate system as a whole.

We can see that the agendas to tackle air quality and greenhouse gases are overlapping more and are converging in a common set of policies, decisions and regulations that are more comprehensive, and that will help us solve the problem in an integrated way.

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Capturing the health benefits of climate policy is critical

By jgohlke / Published: October 4, 2021

Over the past 30 years, numerous scientific reports have highlighted the health impacts of climate change, starting with the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report in 1990. The report included a short summary on heat stress, vector and water borne diseases and air pollution health effects like asthma and heart attacks.

Yet health impacts are not fully accounted for in cost of carbon estimates – presenting a missed opportunity. Public health researchers and economists should continue to work together to more fully capture the health value of policies that cut climate pollution.

Climate and health

The most recent National Climate Assessment, published in 2018, provides an extensive review of climate change effects on human health in U.S. regions. Public health impacts include:

changes in mortality and hospitalizations due to extreme weather events including heat waves, floods, and droughts.
changes in vector-, food-, and waterborne infectious diseases.
changes in chemical exposures via air, food and water.
stresses to mental health.

The World Health Organization (WHO) quantifies global health impacts of climate change, utilizing the burden of disease methodology to estimate mortality and disability-adjusted life years. Based on heat-related mortality, diarrheal disease, malnutrition and malaria, the most recent WHO assessment projected 250,000 additional deaths per year in 2030 – despite only quantifying a subset of health impacts from climate change.

The Lancet has also commissioned several series of articles and reports detailing the human health implications of climate change. After the Paris Agreement, the outlet initiated the Lancet Countdown, tracking the status of health effects from climate change through reporting on numerous indicators across impacts, exposures and vulnerabilities, as well as adaptation and mitigation actions. For example, the most recent Lancet report estimated a 53.7% increase in heat-related mortality over the last 20 years and an estimated 15% increase in climate suitability for transmission of dengue.

Health benefits largely absent

Benefit-cost analysis – typically managed by economists – is a cornerstone of U.S. regulatory analysis. The U.S. Government is required to use a monetized estimate of the net impacts of global climate change, referred to as the social cost of carbon (SCC), in regulatory rulemakings of greenhouse gas emissions. The current models used to estimate the SCC incorporate impacts to agriculture productivity, energy use, property damage and, within the health sector, an estimation of changes in cold and heat-related mortality.

Yet, while the research community continues to provide more detailed characterizations of climate change’s health effects, health researchers have been less involved in applying these findings to estimate the SCC. As a result, health is still not fully represented in the SCC.

Quantification of health benefits, like lives saved and hospitalizations avoided, can provide critical justification for and evidence of success of environmental policies. For example, the regulatory impact analysis of the Clean Power Plan included an estimation of health and other benefits from reduced greenhouse gas emissions using the SCC estimate, as well as expected health co-benefits via reduced air pollution.

Improving health benefits estimates

A 2017 National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine report recommended two critical research needs for advancing the science behind the SCC estimate:

Updating health damage modules to incorporate recent health literature.
Improving delineation of the different effects of climate change across regions of the world – e.g., trying to determine the different health impacts expected in different areas.

Since the release of this report, several groups have been working to address these recommendations. For example, the Climate Impact Lab has developed an improved temperature-related mortality estimate that incorporates adaptation and delineates distributional effects across areas of the globe.

A recent analysis utilized WHO, Climate Impact Lab, and Lancet Countdown temperature-mortality functions to produce estimated mortality costs associated with climate change – suggesting a seven-fold increase in estimated monetary damages from previous estimates. In other words, adding in more specific health damage estimates increased the estimated cost of carbon pollution by seven times—from $37 to $258 per metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted.

Although climate change is a global phenomenon, the impacts are unequal and disproportionately burden underserved, low-income and marginalized communities. For example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that socially vulnerable populations are likely to experience the most severe harms from climate change. Evaluating distributional health effects of climate change at a finer geographical scale could help policymakers address inequities.

It’s critical for policymakers to have accurate information to weigh the benefits and costs of cutting carbon. With health researchers involved, benefit-cost analyses can more accurately capture the threat that climate change poses to people’s health – and the benefits that come with acting on climate.

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The World Bank’s Ernesto Sánchez-Triana on the fight for clean air

By Sergio Sanchez / Published: September 3, 2021

Ernesto Sánchez-Triana is the Global Lead for Pollution Management and Circular Economy for the World Bank, where he manages the Program on Pollution Management and Environmental Health and the Program on Pollution Management and Circular Economy. He recently shared his thoughts on the fight for clean air with Sergio Sanchez, EDF’s Senior Policy Director, Global Clean Air.

Sergio: Why do you fight for clean air?

Ernesto: My best friend died of lung cancer when he was less than 40 years old. Like me, he had completed graduate studies in environmental engineering. In addition, one of my sons had respiratory problems associated with air pollution that resulted in bronchitis and asthma. This experience, as well as over three decades of working closely with the most vulnerable populations on the planet, have led me to specialize in this area. This is more than a professional obligation for me; it is an unconditional commitment that brings meaning to my life.

Air pollution is one of the biggest environmental threats the world faces and is the world’s leading environmental risk to human health. Exposure to PM2.5 (particles equal to or less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter) pollution, both outdoors and indoors, caused an estimated 6.4 million premature deaths and 21 million years lived with disability in 2019, according to the Global Burden of Disease Report. About 95% of those deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries.

The World Bank has estimated that the annual health costs of PM2.5 pollution are US$8.1 trillion. Thus, in addition to causing pain and suffering, air pollution causes significant economic costs, equivalent to nearly 6.1% of global gross domestic product. Unless ambitious and concrete interventions are implemented, ambient (outdoor) air pollution is likely to increase its health and social burden in the future as low- and middle-income countries continue to urbanize, industrialize, and experience population growth.

Helping low- and middle-income client countries to address pollution-related challenges is indispensable to the World Bank’s mission of ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity in a sustainable manner. The poor and other vulnerable groups, including children, the elderly, and women, are primarily affected by air pollution. They are exposed to higher concentrations of PM2.5 for reasons that include worse air quality in their neighborhoods, reliance on solid fuels for cooking and heating, and occupational exposure.

Sergio: Why do you find this work so critical, especially today?

Ernesto: Air pollution is increasingly recognized as the worldwide public health crisis that it is and a top development priority in fostering the creation of competitive, prosperous cities whose residents and visitors can breathe safe air. Recent analytical work conducted by the World Bank has demonstrated that interventions to manage air quality can deliver multiple benefits. Although the largest benefit is in health—notably through a reduction in premature death and cases of illness—there are additional benefits such as supporting more-livable cities, energy efficiency, reductions in healthcare costs and improvements in agricultural productivity, among others.

Furthermore, some air pollutants—most notably, black carbon and methane—are climate warmers. Black carbon is a component of PM 2.5 and therefore has adverse impacts on health. Consequently, efforts to reduce black carbon have benefits for health as well as for climate-change mitigation.

International health crises, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, further highlight the need for continued action in addressing environmental pollution. Ongoing research is finding close links between air pollution and the incidence of illness and death due to COVID-19. Air pollution can cause cellular damage and inflammation throughout the body and has been linked to higher rates of diseases, including cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, asthma, and other comorbidities. All these conditions can also increase the risk of death in COVID-19 patients.

Sergio: How does the World Bank help countries reduce air pollution? How much funding is the World Bank financing for air pollution control?

Ernesto: Addressing air-quality management through analytical work, technical assistance, and lending is a top priority for the World Bank. During the period FY2004–FY2020, the World Bank portfolio of lending and technical assistance that targeted pollution amounted to approximately US$49 billion, of which about US$15 billion targeted air pollution.

Sergio: Where do you see the future of air quality monitoring for Low- and Middle-Income Countries?

Ernesto: Establishment of ground-level networks to measure and monitor air and climate pollutants is key. Supporting countries in developing robust plans for managing air quality—plans driven by reliable monitoring data on air quality—provide the basis for implementing projects that reduce high levels of air pollutants in a cost-effective way. Countries need to prioritize establishing and strengthening ground-level monitoring networks that measure fine (PM2.5) and ultrafine (PM0.1) particulate matter to inform the design and implementation of effective and efficient investment and policy interventions to protect human health from air pollution’s adverse effects.

The World Bank, through the Pollution Management and Environmental Health program, conducted analytical work on the potential for applying satellite measurements for air-quality monitoring in low- and middle-income countries. This study aimed to improve knowledge both on the extent to which satellite measurements can best be used to enhance air-quality monitoring, thus improving estimation of human exposure to air pollution, and on how satellite measurements can be brought into closer agreement with ground-level data, considering the shortcomings and advantages of satellite measurements.

The analytical work found that many different conditions—including mountainous terrains, snow, coasts, clouds, and dust—prevent accurate representations of air-pollution conditions by satellites in the cities tested. Overall, this work suggests that satellites cannot be a replacement for a high-quality ground-level monitoring (GLM) network in any of the cities evaluated, which initially included Delhi, India; Lima, Peru; and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; and later expanded to include Accra, Ghana; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Dakar, Senegal; Hanoi, Vietnam; Kampala, Uganda; and Kathmandu, Nepal.

In countries with no GLM data available, satellite estimates of surface PM2.5 concentration may have errors in the range of 22 to 85 percent. Establishment of GLM networks that include adequate quality assurance and quality control and follow standard operating procedures to ensure the data are of sufficient quality would likely enable better understanding of human exposure to air pollution specific to an individual city.

Sergio: Why should people participate in International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies (Sept 7)? What do you see as the role of international collaboration in the fight against air pollution?

Ernesto: The International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies brings a global call for action toward a single, unifying objective: clean air for all by urging countries to work together to tackle air pollution around the world. The International Day of Clean Air plays an indispensable role in spurring action against air pollution. For instance, it strengthens awareness about the significant health, social, economic, and development impacts caused by air pollution and galvanizes collective action to address it.

We have seen how important public-awareness campaigns have been to increase public and private commitments to tackle environmental problems. The Bank has partnered with other organizations to raise awareness among decision-makers and the general public on the air-pollution crisis. In 2018, together with the World Health Organization (WHO), the Bank organized the First Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health. The conference concluded with a Geneva Action Agenda to Combat Air Pollution to scale up efforts and mobilize action globally. The aspirational goal is to reduce the number of deaths from air pollution by two-thirds by 2030.

Airsheds cross both domestic state jurisdictions and national boundaries, often requiring international collaboration to ensure effective regional air-quality management. For example, international collaboration is needed to address the air-quality challenges of regional airsheds, such as the Indo-Gangetic Plain and Indus Basin, and the North China Plain; airsheds covering the Gulf States, Western Balkan States, and Turkey; and major urban agglomerations along the coast of Western Africa. International collaboration also plays a role in sharing knowledge and lessons learned from airshed approaches that have been critical in improving air quality in several parts of the world.

International collaboration can also contribute to developing analytical work that can underpin effective interventions, as demonstrated by the World Bank Group’s experience in supporting air-quality management in its client countries. For instance, in China, analytical work supported by the Bank helped to identify the sources of ambient air pollution in Hebei Province, including agriculture, which had previously not been considered. As a result of the findings of the analytical work, the Bank financed interventions to reduce ambient air pollution associated with the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers in the agriculture sector. In Peru, benefit-cost analysis of alternative interventions to control air pollution informed the design of three development policy lending operations that addressed air pollution through policy reforms in the energy and transport sectors. International collaboration could be used to support analytical work to inform the design and implementation of policy reforms and investments to tackle air pollution, as well as for generating knowledge of a more global nature with application across regions.

While technical assistance, analytical work, and advocacy are key tools for achieving objectives in managing air quality, capital mobilization is critical for ensuring that investments to reduce air pollution are put in place. International collaboration is vital to attract private investors and other stakeholders with an appetite for financial mechanisms for air-pollution control, including results-based mechanisms for payment for air-quality improvements such as green bonds. The very first green bond was issued in 2007 by the European Investment Bank and the World Bank. By 2020, multilateral development banks, private investors, and governments had issued bonds with a cumulative value of more than US$1 trillion. Green bonds illustrate how international collaboration can pilot new financial mechanisms and business models that will unlock significant investments to address air pollution and other sustainability challenges.

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Tackling air pollution and climate justice together

By Ananya Roy / Published: August 24, 2021

By Elizabeth Moses and Ananya Roy

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 100^o 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 »

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