Global Clean Air

Six ways to ramp up climate and clean air action in 2025

By Sarah Vogel / Published: November 8, 2024

Six ways to ramp up climate and clean air action in 2025

2024 has been a significant year for the climate and air pollution crisis, both in terms of the mounting impacts and increased action. Extreme climate events like hurricanes and wildfires devastated communities around the world, forcing the issue to the forefront of public consciousness. Meanwhile countries, companies and communities took some noteworthy actions to track and reduce emissions, including major commitments made at COP28 to cut methane followed by the launch of MethaneSAT and the first UN resolution on clean air.

Climate change and air pollution are dual challenges that severely impact our health and as such must be solved together.

EDF together with the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) and Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) convened cross-sector clean air leaders to discuss how we can take an integrated approach to cutting greenhouse gases and air pollutants to protect human health. Together, we took stock of how far we’ve come, assessed some hard truths and identified the biggest opportunities in front of us to secure meaningful wins. The conversation captured some important learnings in the struggle to accelerate clean air and climate action that help point towards a pathway forward. Here are six takeaways.

1. Investments in data and research are paying off

Dr. Maria Neira, Director of the Public Health, Environment and Social Determinants of Health Department of the World Health Organization, shared how she has been encouraged by a shift in the recent global pollution dialogue away from merely describing the problem and toward building solutions. We know that research and monitoring efforts, some of which EDF has led, have been essential to understanding the source and impacts of pollution and to identifying solutions. The dialogue shift described by Dr. Neira suggests those efforts are starting to pay off as governments and companies are using pollution insights to identify solutions.

2. Cutting emissions takes resources and capacity

Global air pollution mitigation is severely underfunded, a crucial issue explored more below. But Martina Otto, head of UNEP’s CCAC, emphasized that governments need technical assistance as much as funding to help them set-up and maintain air quality monitoring systems that can enable effective enforcement, track clean air actions and identify new pollution sources.

This was echoed by Brazil’s National Secretary of Urban Environment, Adalberto Maluf, who outlined his country’s current efforts to implement air pollution standards including upgrading the national air quality monitoring network. The CCAC’s Clean Air Flagship, launched earlier this year, is a meaningful step toward meeting this need by mobilizing funds and fostering a community of practice where countries can learn from each other and share resources through the Air Quality Management Exchange.

3. We need to get better at tailoring our messaging

During her remarks, Valerie Hickey, Global Director for Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy at the World Bank, called for a fresh look at how we communicate about air pollution and its health risks, especially to those most affected. She gave an example of a farmer in Northern India who continues to engage in agricultural burning in full knowledge of the health risks, because he also knows that without it, he couldn’t earn enough to sustain his family.

In a second example, Hickey described a health minister who is told that every $1 she invests in cleaner air returns $9 in health benefits. While the Minister knows this is true in the long term, she has several more urgent needs where the $1 she has can return $2 or $3 right away. Throw in the pressure to deliver before a coming election—what would you do? Making the case for avoided loss doesn’t often move the policy or political decision maker. “We have to find the message that meets the person we’re speaking to,” concluded Hickey.

4. Companies are stepping up to track their emissions and implement reduction plans. More need to follow suit.

Many countries and some companies are developing greenhouse gas inventories to support plans to cut emissions and meet net zero goals. But few have integrated air pollutants into these assessments to address the tradeoffs and synergies. That’s why SEI created a guide to help companies track climate and air pollution emissions across their supply chains and design plans to reduce them. Research Associate in the Air Pollution Group, Eleni Michalopoulou, explained how SEI is partnering with Inter IKEA group, a member of the World Economic Forum’s Alliance for Clean Air, to do just that.

With SEI’s help, IKEA recently established a goal and detailed plan to reduce the company’s climate emissions by 50% by 2030. According to IKEA’s Head of Climate and Air Quality, Sriram Rajagopal, the company is evaluating its entire supply chain, from raw materials to product production, shipping and even end of life disposal. He says IKEA is on track to meet its goal and maybe even exceed it on key air pollutants such as PM2.5, black carbon, nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SOx).

5. Some countries have already made great strides, and more are stepping up

Angela Churie Kallhauge, EDF’s Executive Vice President for Impact, opened the event by describing the immense progress that the city of Beijing has made on air pollution in recent years, going from smog to blue skies in little more than a decade. This example demonstrates the potential to cut pollution and drastically improve health in a short time frame as we continue to decarbonize. This is a differentiator for clean air action that our community can do a better job to highlight for leaders and funders.

We also learned about how Brazil has been taking significant steps to cut pollution. Sec. Maluf shared how the country recently approved its first ever national air quality program, which will commission a detailed emissions inventory, improve its national monitoring network and tighten air quality standards. EDF is assisting Brazil’s government in this effort by advising on the new standards, developing an integrated approach to managing climate and air pollutants and expanding our Air Tracker tool to its two largest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

6. Air quality funding isn’t likely to surge any time soon – it’s time to get creative

Jane Burston, CEO of the Clean Air Fund (CAF) brought another dose of reality to the conversation by sharing the results of CAF’s latest State of Global Air Quality Funding Report: Global financing for air quality projects saw a tiny increase in recent years, but remains dismally low at about 1% of global development and 2% of public climate funds. Burston echoed an important point made by Hickey from the World Bank: Air quality is unlikely to see a dramatic funding boost anytime soon, so we must find more creative ways to reallocate or repurpose money that’s already available to maximize benefits for clean air, climate and health. Both speakers shared a few thoughts for how to do this, including repurposing agricultural subsidies, providing seed funding to de-risk private sector investments, and strengthening our case to the philanthropic sector.

What’s next: This conversation brought a grounded optimism to the real progress we can make to tackle the global air pollution crisis. While low funding remains our greatest challenge, our messaging about the scope and urgency of the problem has broken through to countries, communities and increasingly companies around the world. Now it is incumbent upon us to translate what we know into meaningful, tailored stories and to focus on metric-driven solutions that can help redirect existing resources to deliver emissions reductions. By taking these next steps while approaching air pollution and climate change as the interrelated problems that they are, we can deliver tangible health benefits to a more people than ever in the coming critical years.

Also posted in Academic, Brazil, Business, China, Climate, Concerned Citizen, Corporate Sustainability Professional, Energy, Environmental Justice, Government Official/Policymaker, Homepage, Methane, Monitoring, Public Health/Environmental Official, Science, USA / Comments are closed

Catalogue of Indian Emission Inventory Reports (Jan 2022)

By Kevin Tuerff / Published: January 11, 2022

 

Indian Emission Inventory Report_DIGITAL FILE

(By PAARTHA BOSU, NEW DELHI, INDIA)  A detailed air emission inventory (EI) is a comprehensive list of pollutants within a pre-defined geographical area and is beneficial for developing clean air action plans. It can also test the effectiveness of pilot interventions towards air quality abatement. Emission inventories have been prepared for several Indian cities and states. However, several of these EI reports have not been given due attention. This report presents a database of all publicly available EI reports and several previously un-referred studies for India to help policymakers and scientists prepare reckoner of all the work done in the area.

EI studies have been tabulated as per the source contribution (total emissions, transport, residential, industrial, power plants, agriculture, waste and others) along with details such as geography, grid size, emission factors used, and type of data collected (primary surveys vs secondary literature). Each sector list also consists of the pollutants studied and highlights those reports that have closely followed the existing CPCB guidelines.

As per various operating sections of the Air Act 1981, air pollution monitoring, calculation of pollution load, preparation of emission inventory, preparation of action plan for air pollution control should be done as per the SOPs issued by CPCB from time to time. Therefore, emission inventory prepared by agencies and experts using other methodology may not be tenable per Air Act 1981. In its order for Critically Polluted Areas and Non-Attainment Cities, the National Green Tribunal mentioned that methodologies recommended by CPCB should be followed for such studies.

Robust EI reports form the mainstay of a city’s source apportionment and mitigation strategies. Therefore, scrutiny of the EI reports is required, especially now that all 132 non-attainment cities have been mandated to carry out source apportionment studies. Furthermore, periodically revised emission inventories could help check each sector’s efficacy of control actions. Finally, regional emission inventories now need to be prioritised as the airshed approach has gained prominence in air pollution management in India. About 200 EI reports have been collated and made available with hyperlinks for researchers and policymakers to use. They have also been sectorally classified for ease.

Key Findings

  1. An easy to use ready reckoner of air pollution emission inventory studies for India was created. These reports were catalogued as per sectors; Total emissions, Transport emissions, Industrial and Power Plant emissions, Residential emissions and Emissions from Agriculture, Waste and other miscellaneous sectors.
  2. It was found that only some of the studies followed the CPCB guidelines closely of using indigenous emission factors and primary data for creating emission inventories
  3. Geographically, most of the studies were concentrated in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, focusing on Delhi and the National Capital Region. Multiple emission inventories for the same city and region leads to uncertainties. Instead, a common framework for EI development should be followed. EIs should be periodically updated every few years to test the efficacy of interventions. For instance, in the transport sector, EI for the current year could help gain insights on the effects of introduction on BS VI mass emission standards on road transport emissions. In the residential sector, the introduction of LPG in rural households would have led to a reduction in emissions, and this should reflect in the latest EI report
  4. Emission factors will determine the accuracy of estimations. However, our Indian conditions are distinct from our western counterparts. Therefore, relying on the emission factors developed by USEPA might lead to inaccuracies. Thus, the transport sector emission factors developed by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) were used.
  5. Inventories need to be developed for toxics like VOCs and heavy metals like mercury. Doing so will enable the development of standards for these pollutants

Download the report

For further details on the report:

Parthaa Bosu (pbosu@edf.org)

Swagata Dey (sdey@edf.org)

Also posted in Academic, Government Official/Policymaker, Science / Comments are closed

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 (PM2.5) 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 PM2.5 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 PM5 vary 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 PM2.5 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 PM2.5 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 PM2.5), 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.

Also posted in Health, Homepage / Comments are closed

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.”

Also posted in Health / Comments are closed