Air Pollution in Asia Nowadays

Air pollution has been the sixth most dangerous threat to human health in South Asia. With growing public awareness of the negative consequences of air pollution, it seems there has not been an effective solution so far. How is the air pollution affecting people's life in Aisa? What is already done to mitigate the pollutants and what else needs to be done? Is the air pollution unavoidable for industrial development? In this post, I'm going to try to answer these questions.

fig 1. Picture of haze in Singapore's CBD over weekend

Generally, when we talk about air pollution in Aisa, we talk about particle matters, particularly PM2.5, which is small enough to be inhaled by human bodies and is the major air pollutant in urban areas. The main composition of urban PM2.5 is black carbon from burning of fossil fuel by power plants and other industrial factories and vehicles, but it can also be formed by sulfur and nitrogen oxides. In Asia, besides the industrial sources, air pollutants also come from residential heating and cooking and growing road traffics. As I mentioned in last few posts, fine particles (PM2.5) have a severe impact on human health. According to an article on Asian Science, in China alone, PM2.5 had caused approximately 1.22 million death in 2013. Another research by National Institute of Environmental Health Science in Bankok, Thailand shows a strong association between various mortality outcomes and fine particles (PM10).

Air pollution has been significantly changing people's lifestyles in Asia. If one walks on the streets of a metropolis in Asia countries, especially developing industrial nations such as India and China, he/she will see near half of the people there are going out with a gauze mask to protect themselves from PM2.5 pollution. Despite the health impact, the low visibility under smoggy conditions also hinders ground transportations and causes safety concerns.

video: interview on how air pollution affects people's life in India.

The public awareness of air pollution in Asia has been rising ever since the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published an article pointing out the correlation between PM2.5 and lung cancer and cardiopulmonary mortality. The urgent call for a solution to air pollution is making achievements in promoting the government to take actions and address the problem.


What have the governments do to mitigate PM air pollution?

One of the most famous rules is the ‘odd and even rule’. In China, this regulation was designed to reduce air pollution during 2008 Olympic. It was significantly effective That the government decided to keep this rule even after the Olympic.

This ‘odd and even’ rule in Beijing also inspired India to adopt a similar model in Delhi. However, is this the ultimate answer to urban PM air pollution? Although his restriction effectively reduced air pollution in a short-term, it can hardly offset the increasing emissions nowadays. Even with the ‘odd and even’ rule, Beijing and Delhi are still suffering under the poor air quality. Eventually, due to the inconvenience, this rule may just encourage people to buy more cars and get more than one registration plates. Moreover, the main emission source of urban air pollution is actually from industrial activities, such as factories and thermal power plants.

Besides the restriction on traffics, the Chinese government declared ‘war’ on air pollution on the annual congress three years ago. One of the strategies is to reduce production on steal and coal-fired electricity. To replace coal, China is rolling out the world’s largest investment in wind and solar energy. In this winter  Chinese government also introduced a restriction on sale, transport, and burning of coal for residential use. According to Greenpeace all power demand growth in China since 2013 is covered by non-fossil energy. In India, there is a rapid decrease in costs with rising energy consumption, as wind and solar energy became more affordable compared to the cleaner new coal. However, the ‘war’ on air pollution is complicating with the unexpected slowdown in economic growth. The restriction on residential use of coal in China also causes burdens on gas supplies, which is used as the substitute of coal.

What Else Can We Do?

Due to air pollution’s transboundary nature, it can hardly be addressed by a single country. For south and east Asia, a regional multilateral agreement is required to solve the problem, take an example for the Convention of Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution in the European Union. To ensure its effectiveness, the convention should be legally bound and take decisions based on scientific results. Countries should also introduce further restriction and improvement of fossil fuel thermal power plants and encourage electric vehicles.