Highlight 33/2022 – Air pollution and the need for a collaborative solution
Jake Van Grieken, 20 May 2022
The air we inhale is common to us all. In our struggle to dam the noxious course of the climate crisis and the disintegration of our natural environment, we must acknowledge that nature is not bound by our borders. Lone and disparate measures are not enough to reverse the ailing health of our planet. In order to address the contamination of our shared terraqueous resources, transboundary cooperation is essential. No city, state or continent can keep pure its air, its atmosphere or its water if its neighbour pollutes the common resources. Intercontinental transport of air pollutants renders air pollution anywhere a universal problem.
Purifying our air is critical to improving the health of our populations and in forging a sustainable and ecological future. Despite existing legislation, air pollution is the most prevalent cause of premature death in the European Union, accounting for ten times more deaths than those inflicted by car accidents. In the United States, 1 in 20 people die of air pollution and the respiratory, cardiovascular and carcinogenic effects it causes. Furthermore, in 2019, 99% of the world population was living in areas with air quality below WHO guidelines. These adverse health effects harm our wellbeing, strain our hospitals and damage the economy with sickness related absences. Air pollution afflicts our environment too, causing acidification of forests and water, destruction of crops and plants as well as leading to eutrophication and the loss of biodiversity. The damage inflicted on urban structures and historical sites costs the EU over EUR 2 billion per year in restoration.
The UNECE 1979 Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP), with its eight protocols, is a testament to the benefits that a collaborative approach to keeping air clean can have. Encompassing North America, Europe and Central Asia, the CLRTAP provides a framework for the adoption of commitments and policies for reducing emissions of polluting substances in the air as well as to develop channels for the exchange of information, research and monitoring to ensure decreased volumes of such particles in our atmosphere. Since its ratification, this multilateral convention has significantly reduced levels of targeted pollutants in the region. Sulphur emissions have reduced by 80% since the 1990s and abatement measures for nitrogen oxides have halved levels over the same period. As a result of the impacts of the CLRTAP, on average life expectancy has increased by 1 year in Europe. In addition to this, acidification of lakes and soil has been significantly diminished and economic growth has been largely decoupled from air pollution trends. According to a recent study by the OECD, abatement costs of air pollution are significantly lower than the costs of inaction.
However, despite the successes of such a convention, more cooperation is needed to reduce the levels of harmful pollutants further, in order to mitigate the toll on our health and on our environment. On the level of the CLRTAP, more ambitious commitments ought to be adopted to decrease emissions standards such as for ammonia, and targets should be implemented in regards to climate and energy. Beyond the boundaries of the Convention itself, more countries should be encouraged to join or commit to similar transboundary efforts, as a regional approach is simply not effective enough to address a problem on such a global scale.
Air is not static, it is not confined in borders or regions. Air is a shared commodity across the globe. If the quality of our air is poor, it affects us all. And so, just as air cannot be contained, neither should the bounds of our cooperation.
Jake Van Grieken, Highglight 33/2022 – Air pollution and the need for a collaborative solution, 20 May 2022, available at www.meig.ch
The views expressed in the MEIG Highlights are personal to the author and neither reflect the positions of the MEIG Programme nor those of the University of Geneva.