Reducing global air pollution: the scope for further policy interventions

Abstract

Over the last decades, energy and pollution control policies combined with structural changes in the economy decoupled emission trends from economic growth, increasingly also in the developing world. It is found that effective implementation of the presently decided national pollution control regulations should allow further economic growth without major deterioration of ambient air quality, but will not be enough to reduce pollution levels in many world regions. A combination of ambitious policies focusing on pollution controls, energy and climate, agricultural production systems and addressing human consumption habits could drastically improve air quality throughout the world. By 2040, mean population exposure to PM2.5 from anthropogenic sources could be reduced by about 75% relative to 2015 and brought well below the WHO guideline in large areas of the world. While the implementation of the proposed technical measures is likely to be technically feasible in the future, the transformative changes of current practices will require strong political will, supported by a full appreciation of the multiple benefits. Improved air quality would avoid a large share of the current 3–9 million cases of premature deaths annually. At the same time, the measures that deliver clean air would also significantly reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and contribute to multiple UN sustainable development goals. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Air quality, past present and future’.

Electricity savings and greenhouse gas emission reductions from global phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons

“…In addition to energy efficiency improvements from technical adjustments of the cooling equipment (viz. stationary air conditioning and commercial, domestic, industrial, and transport refrigerators), there is also expected a small potential for energy efficiency improvement from the transition of high-GWP into low-GWP HFCs for given cooling equipment (Schwarz et al, 2011;Barrault et al, 2018;Shah et al, 2019;Anderson et al, 2020). Both these sources of energy efficiency improvements are considered in this study, while only the latter was considered in Purohit and Höglund-Isaksson (2017) and Höglund-Isaksson et al (2017).…”

“…Purohit et al, 2018). In recent years, there has been a focus on natural refrigerants (pressurized CO 2 , hydrocarbons, and ammonia), low-GWP HFCs, and HFOs used alone or in blends with HFCs to replace fluids with high-GWP (Beshr et al, 2015;McLinden et al, 2017;Anderson et al, 2020;Heredia-Aricapa et al, 2020). A recent increased use of hydrocarbons (e.g., isobutane and propane), ammonia, and pressurized carbon dioxide is expected to continue into the future (UNEP, 2016a).…”

Measurement report: Receptor modelling for source identification of urban fine and coarse particulate matter using hourly elemental composition

“…In addition, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 90% of people living in cities are exposed to PM2.5 levels exceeding the WHO annual guideline value of 10 μg m -³ (WHO, 2018). According to the future projections, by 2040, effective implementation of the current policies would reduce the global anthropogenic primary PM2.5 emission by about 10%, however global population-weighted annual mean PM2.5 concentrations would increase by 10% (Amann et al, 2020).…”

Global Air Quality, past present and future: an introduction

“…There are two papers describing policy aspects explicitly. Monks & Williams [1] consider the drivers of policy and role of science in development of air quality policy over the last 100 years, while Amann et al [2] looks forward to the middle decades of this century to gauge the likely improvements in air quality from current conditions. We appear to be a decade or so after peak emissions of sulfur dioxide and close to peak emissions for NOx emissions and there are prospects of a gradual global improvement in air quality over the next four decades.…”