Majnu, 40, started labouring at the brick kiln in Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Buddha Nagar district this year, when the previous one he worked at shut down after the government rolled out new rules – including a coal ban – to reduce heavy air pollution from the sector.

The green switch has been unaffordable for many kiln owners and has had a domino effect, with kilns closing one after the other in districts around the Indian capital.

“The kiln we were working at shut down and the owner sold his land to a builder,’’ said Majnu, adding that a house will be constructed there instead.

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Majnu had originally found work in the now closed kiln in the Ghaziabad district of Uttar Pradesh through a network of thekedars (contractors) back home, which helped him get his current job too.

“We did not lose a season of work when the kiln shut,” Majnu said. But there are concerns that things may become harder, with many labourers lacking access to social welfare.

Brick-making stops during the monsoon rains – when workers head home to their villages to work on the land, either on their own plots or as farmhands – and restarts at the end of the year.

Measures to ease air pollution

Brick kilns account for 6-7% of Delhi’s emissions of particulate matter, which contains black carbon (soot), according to government officials and researchers with India’s Centre for Science and Environment.

Since 2016, measures have been imposed on the kilns in stages, to cut pollution and help combat the capital’s toxic air. They include shifting the location of some kilns, mandating new, more energy-efficient technology, and last year banning the use of coal to fire the kilns.

Farm fields now line roads that cut through Ghaziabad district, in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, where brick kilns stood even until a few years ago, before many shut down due to new measures to cut air pollution. (Photo: Esha Roy/The Migration Story)

The effort is showing results alongside a range of other measures, with the air quality in Delhi having improved considerably. According to government data, the daily average air quality index in the capital fell from 225 in 2018 to 204 in 2023, showing lower levels of pollution.

But with no proper plans to help brick kiln owners and workers adjust to the changes in how they operate, the sector – which is among the country’s biggest employers, covering some 10 million workers – is floundering, labour rights experts and bosses said.

Unregistered workers

Saniya Anwar of non-profit The Climate Agenda, which advocates for a socially fair shift to clean energy, said most of the brick workers are unskilled, landless and change their phone numbers regularly, making it hard to register them.

“This in turn, means that they often fall outside the safety net of welfare schemes provided by the government for migrant workers,’’ Anwar added.

Like Majnu, Salam Hak, 29, also moved to Gautam Buddha Nagar when the kiln where he worked in Ghaziabad closed.

“We don’t have job cards (for work under the national rural employment guarantee scheme), so while we do daily wage (work) back home, it is not often easy to find,” Hak said.

“It’s the income from the kilns that sustains us through the year. There have been many kilns shutting, and we don’t know what will happen in the future – but we feel that there is no point worrying about it for now,’’ he said.

Hari Chand, 27 (first from left) and Shivam Rai 18 (second from left), hail from Chattarpur in Madhya Pradesh and work at a kiln in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat. While kiln owners in Baghpat said the sector is struggling with the new green norms, in this region, kilns have not shut down yet nor has labour been laid off. (Photo: Esha Roy/The Migration Story)

The 22 districts of the Delhi-National Capital Region are home to more than 3,800 brick kilns. Among these, Uttar Pradesh (UP) has the highest concentration of kilns at 2,062.

A state official working on pollution control said Ghaziabad is among the areas most affected by the green transition, with the number of kilns halving in the past six years, but there is no count of, or plan to support the workers who lose their jobs.

Another UP official in the labour department noted that brick kiln workers are seasonal rather than permanent and as such are not entitled to alternative government employment schemes that kick in when a factory shuts down, for example.

Excluded from state benefits

Living off agriculture alone would be tough for workers like Majnu and his family, who cultivate fields belonging to landlords and keep a portion of the crop, mostly rice paddy, as income.

“We are bhag chashis (landless farmers) back home, and we never make enough,’’ said Majnu, stacking the last lot of bricks next to mountains of agricultural waste being used to fire the Dankaur kilns.

“The earnings here (at kilns) are more than what we make back home, where we only get part of the crop to either consume or sell – whereas here, we make 600 rupees (around $7) per 1,000 bricks made and can make up to 1,200 rupees a day,’’ he said.

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The Building and Other Construction Workers (BoCW) Act of 1996 does include social security and welfare benefits for brick kiln workers, including scholarships, maternity benefits, marriage assistance, pensions, financial help for funeral services and food rations.

But labour experts say most brick kiln workers are not registered and therefore cannot access the benefits – neither have they been part of the energy transition conversation so far.

“The isolated nature of seasonal migrant workers at brick kilns is a major factor in preventing access to services, and makes them entirely dependent on the kiln owners,” said Ravi Srivastava, director of the Centre for Employment Studies at the Institute for Human Development.

The cost of going green

In Ghaziabad, a congested, booming industrial township 36 km from the capital, Ravinder Kumar Tewatia, former general secretary of the All India Bricks and Tile Manufacturers Federation, said 200 of 430 brick kilns have shut since 2018.

He closed the last of the four kilns he owned two years ago as norms got stricter and the business less profitable.

In 2016, the Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority gave all kilns in Ghaziabad a two-year period to switch to “zig zag” technology – an energy-efficient kiln design allowing chimneys to retain heat for longer.

Then, between 2022-2023, the Supreme Court ordered the annual period for manufacturing bricks to be cut from seven to four months and imposed the mandatory use of agricultural waste instead of coal to heat the kilns.

“Now you can’t get coal even if you want to,” Tewatia said, explaining that the main issue with farm waste – mainly wheat and mustard husks – is lower temperatures in the kilns where the clay bricks are hardened.

“As a result of this, the bricks that are being produced are of lower quality and more fragile,” he said.

Workers stack bricks at a kiln in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, as their shift comes to an end. (Photo: Esha Roy/The Migration Story)

Kiln owners said the shortened brick-baking season has impacted production volumes, hitting overall earnings. At the same time, falling brick quality has led to prices plunging by around half.

“We have been demanding that the government allow us to use a mix of coal and agricultural waste,’’ said Tewatia.

Pollution control board officials said the central government did provide alternatives, including biomass briquettes and compressed natural gas, but these also suffer from lower heat generation and gas is not suitable for use in most traditional kilns.

Farming fails to pay

The kilns have been a second home for Nidesh Kuma, 27, since he was a toddler, accompanying his parents to mould and shape bricks near Delhi, as frequent floods on the Ganges River prevents farming in their village.

For the past five years, Kumar has been “supplying” migrant workers from his Sambhal area of Uttar Pradesh to the Delhi region. This year, he placed 40 families in three kilns there, noting that his network is strong and extensive.

But with more brick kilns closing, the seasonal migration pattern has started to lose its appeal – and could be a sign of things to come, say labour rights campaigners.

“What can we do?” asked 55-year-old Laturi Singh, a brick-maker and labour contractor also from Sambhal.

“When the kilns shut down, most (workers) were absorbed at other kilns, but some have gone back to the villages and are working as daily wage workers earning 300 rupees a day, which is much less.”

(Reporting by Esha Roy; editing by Megan Rowling)

This article was first published by The Migration Story, India’s first newsroom to focus on the country’s vast internal migrant population.

Esha Roy is an independent journalist writing on issues of climate change, social development and government policy. Reporting for this story was supported by Buniyaad, a movement for a just transition in the brick kiln sector.

The post Pollution clampdown on Delhi kilns threatens brick workers’ future appeared first on Climate Home News.

But, as gold-medal winning Chinese-American teenager Eileen Gu spun four and a half times in the air, the backdrop was three Olympic-ring branded cooling towers.

On social media, it was mocked as “dystopian”, a “hellscape” and a symbol of climate change. Users speculated that it was a nuclear power or coal plant.

It’s actually the disused Shougang steel mill. Previously the city’s biggest polluter and one of its biggest employers, it shut down before the 2008 Olympics due to concerns over air pollution.

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Asked about the mockery, Beijing-based Greenpeace activist Li Shuo told Climate Home News: “I can’t comment on other people’s taste… For me, it is breathtaking. Just stunning,” he said.

The cooling towers were compared to The Simpson’s fictional Springfield nuclear power plant but Li said: “There are at least two themes that are meaningful if one bothers to dig a little deeper than Homer Simpson”.

First, he said, “it tells people that sports could be close to you, not necessarily in the Alps thousands of miles away”.

Second, he said, “it highlights a city’s transition towards a low-carbon economy and the tangible progress that can be achieved”.

Referring to London’s disused coal plant turned art gallery, he asked: “How come Tate Modern is cool and Big Air Shougang is not?”

London’s Tate Modern used to be a coal power plant but is now a modern art gallery (Photo: ReservasdeCoches.com/Flickr)

Over the last two decades, China’s capital has reduced its air pollution significantly by curbing coal smoke from heavy industry and home heating.

The area around the steel mill, which was built in 1919, was tranformed into a destination for tourism and cultural events, hosting weddings, electronic music festivals and breweries.

Engineering firm Arup, who redeveloped the site, claims it did so in a low-carbon way with green buildings, transport and energy. The company also claims the area’s design helps absorb rainwater, reducing the risk of flooding.

While Beijing’s air quality has benefitted from the mill’s closure though, the atmosphere hasn’t. The Shougang company opened a new mill a few hours’ drive out of town in Hebei province. So coal is still being burned to make steel, just not in Beijing.

Steel plants (red and orange) have moved from Beijing to neighbouring Hebei province (Photo: Global Energy Monitor/Global steel plant tracker)

On top of this, according to Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air analyst Lauri Myllyvirta, some of the pollution wasn’t banished far enough away for Beijingers.

“All the heavy industry from Beijing was moved to different parts of Hebei [before the 2008 olympics], assuming that’s so far away – 300/400 km – that it is not going to affect Beijing any more,” he said .

“But in the following half a decade the industry mushroomed to such a size in Hebei that that became a much bigger problem for Beijing’s air quality,” he added.

The games’ environmental critics have pointed to the use of energy and water intensive fake snow, both at the venues in Beijing and at the Zhangjiakou ski slopes, a three hour drive north of Beijing.

This is the Winter Olympics in the era of climate breakdown. The first winter games to rely almost entirely on fake snow. The hills outside Beijing are snow-free, so 49 million gallons of water and 300 snow guns have been used to create this. pic.twitter.com/wYtB6qMGII

— XR Cambridge (@xr_cambridge) February 6, 2022

Fake snow is needed because, although it is cold, the area is dry. Evaluting Beijing’s bid, the International Olympic Committee said: “Northern China suffers from severe water stress and the Beijing-Zhangjiakou area is becoming increasingly arid.” It blamed this stress on climate change, intensive industrial and agricultural use and high domestic demand.

Beijing is not the first host city to struggle for snow. As early as 1964, Austrian volunteers had to carry and hand-pack ice into snow for the Innsbruck games. New York’s Lake Placid was the first games to use snow machines in 1980. In recent years, their use has become routine. They were used in Vancouver in 2010, Sochi in 2014 and PyeongChang in 2018.

But Beijing is the first games to rely completely on fake snow. Strasbourg University geographer Carmen de Jong told the Wall Street Journal that making this snow could use two million cubic metres of water, worsening the region’s water stress.

Turning water to snow is also energy-intensive although the venues’ developer claims the snow canons are powered by nearby wind farms.

The trend towards fake snow is likely to intensify at future Winter Olympics as the climate heats up. Of the 21 past venues, a study by the University of Waterloo found that only 12 will be cold enough to host it with real snow again in the 2050s, even if the world meets its Paris climate targets.

Places like Russia’s black sea resort of Sochi and the Alpine towns of Grenoble, Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Chamonix will be too warm, they found.

This study only took into account temperature, not rainfall levels. So it included Beijing in its list of  eight hosts which will stay “climate reliable” even in a high-emissions scenario in the 2080s.

The next games will be hosted by the Italian city of Milan and the nearby ski resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo. According to Waterloo University, this will be reliably cold enough for snow.

The post Cooling towers, fake snow: What the Beijing Winter Olympics says about climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

If a downturn in air pollution observed by satellites over China in February lasts a year, premature deaths from air pollution could fall by about 50,000 to 100,000, scientists at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo (Cicero) have said.

The coronavirus pandemic has reduced demand for coal and other fossil fuels linked to a closure of factories and less road traffic, both in China and in other parts of the world.

Kristin Aunan, a senior researcher at Cicero, said the possibility of reduced deaths from air pollution was in no way to detract from the severity of the pandemic.

“But we have to remember that air pollution kills people, especially vulnerable elderly people,” she told Climate Home News.

Putting the brakes on – Climate Weekly

So far coronavirus, known as Covid-19, has infected about 170,000 people worldwide and killed 6,500, with cases surging daily in many nations.

Aunan was the lead researcher of a 2018 study that estimated that between 1.15 million and 1.24 million people in China die from air pollution every year.

And the World Health Organisation (WHO) says air pollution kills about seven million people worldwide annually by causing heart disease, lung cancers and respiratory infections.

The Cicero researchers focused on fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, described by the WHO as the most harmful type of pollution of 2.5 micrometres or less across.

Earlier this month, Copernicus, the EU’s Earth Observation Programme, said satellite measurements showed that levels of PM2.5 pollution over China in February 2020 were down by about 20-30% compared to the average for the same month in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Based on those observations, Aunan and her colleagues wrote that if PM2.5 concentrations “over China remains at a level 20-30% below the baseline situation for a full year, the annual avoided number of premature deaths could amount to 54,000 – 109,000”.

That would correspond to a reduction in deaths from air pollution of 5% to 10%.

She cautioned that the figures were highly uncertain and that the impact would be far less if China’s economy recovers quickly, especially if Beijing seeks to stimulate the economy by burning more fossil fuels.

Nasa has also cited evidence that the decline in air pollution over China “is at least partly related to the economic slowdown following the outbreak of coronavirus”.

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A Copernicus official said the agency would issue satellite images of Italy this week to illustrate how a nationwide lockdown has affected air pollution in the European nation hardest hit by coronavirus.

The European Public Health Alliance, a non-governmental group advocating better health for all, said in a statement that all air pollution aggravated risks in Europe from the virus.

“Covid-19 has also highlighted the need for a long-term EU strategy to address Europe’s invisible epidemic of non-communicable diseases, and measures to tackle air pollution,” it said.

It added that “patients suffering from conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, or respiratory diseases have proved to be particularly vulnerable to the outbreak”.

The European Commission says that more than 400,000 people die prematurely from air pollution every year in the EU.

Aunan told CHN she hoped efforts to combat coronavirus would also put a spotlight on wider health risks such as pollution and climate change, which is disrupting food and water supplies with heatwaves, droughts and floods.

“When we look into the future for climate change and air pollution… all these risk factors are continuously taking lives,” she said.

The post Coronavirus: China’s economic slowdown curbs deadly air pollution appeared first on Climate Home News.

The 450 MW coal power plant project in Tuzla, Bosnia, which is due to replace existing ageing units, and a planned 350MW plant in the Serbian town of Kostolac could become stumbling blocks for the two nations’ efforts to join the EU.

The plants highlight China’s growing role as a source for coal projects in the Balkans shunned by western lenders because of concerns about climate change and pollution. The Bosnian plant has been described in Chinese media as part of Beijing’s “Belt and Road” initiative, a trade and infrastructure network linking Asia with Europe and Africa that revives ties along the ancient Silk Road.

Previously unpublished documents, obtained and translated by Unearthed and examined by experts, show the feasibility studies used to seek and obtain approval for the power stations massively under-estimate the costs the plants will face once Bosnia and Serbia join the EU’s carbon market, a condition for joining the bloc.

That could leave local taxpayers on the hook, since parliaments in both countries have provided state guarantees to China on the loan repayments of hundreds of millions of euros. Serbia is negotiating to join the EU, perhaps in 2025, after applying in 2009. Bosnia is further back in the queue after applying in 2016.

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Frede Hvelplund, professor of Energy Planning at Denmark’s Aalborg University, said the reports were grossly flawed.

He called the Bosnian feasibility study “absurd”, saying it under-estimated the costs of emitting carbon dioxide in the EU by assuming a price that is less than a third of the current €25 a tonne on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

Hvelplund, who publishes academic work on best practice for feasibility studies, said the errors in carbon pricing alone are “enough to say the study is totally wrong”. The Serbian project similarly used unrealistic projections.

China’s ExIm Bank and other partners backing the Bosnian and Serbian projects did not respond to requests for comment about the assumptions underpinning the projects.

Molly Scott Cato, a member of the European Parliament for the Green Party from the South West of England, said the Chinese-backed coal plants made no sense.

“King Coal is dead – it is a stranded economic asset and environmental disaster. If we are to prevent climate chaos we must leave it in the ground,” she said. “Any country negotiating to join the EU must meet Paris Agreement standards on carbon reductions and any energy investments should be viable at the current ETS carbon price.”

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Coal-fired power plants are typically designed to last 25-40 years.  Conventional coal-fired plants will have to be phased out worldwide by 2050 to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Experts said the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) produced for the plants also failed to detail either local or cross-border pollution.

A study by the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) found that in 2016 alone, 16 coal plants in the Western Balkan states released as much sulphur dioxide as the entire fleet of the EU’s 250 installations. The alliance estimated air pollution from the 16 plants caused 3,900 premature deaths a year, many in neighbouring EU nations.

Kristina Stojak, 36, keeps a collection of asthma inhalers on her sitting room table in Divkovici, near Tuzla in Bosnia, for her two young boys. Lung problems are common in Tuzla, largely due to the city’s existing 715MW lignite-fired power plant which pumps out 51,000 tonnes of toxic sulphur dioxide per year.

Separately, waste ash and coal slag – the products of combustion – are pumped into landfill sites, one of which is a kilometre from Stojak’s house. The wind scatters ash from the dump, called Jezero II.

Every day Stojak sweeps a layer of fine grey flakes from her balcony. “I would honestly like to move somewhere else – but my husband is staying here to fight the problem. I think we will all suffer,” she said.

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The Bosnian government has not issued a study on contamination of air, soil and water by Jezero II and similar landfills, but a 2015 study by researchers from Prague’s University of Chemistry and Technology found nickel, chromium, cadmium, arsenic and mercury in soil samples taken nearby. Higher levels of cadmium – a carcinogen – were found in onions grown locally.

As part of plans for the new 450MW unit at the Tuzla power plant, state-owned utility Elektroprivreda Bosne-i-Hercegovine (EPBiH) is now pushing for permission to create a new ash dump nearby at a site called Sicki Brod.

The proposed landfill is at the site of a former coal mine which has been rehabilitated by local activists over the past 20 years. Today, it is surrounded by orchards and residents swim in a lake. Proposed amendments to the Tuzla Canton spatial plan to accommodate EPBiH’s proposals describe the transformation of the lake into an ash dump as a “recultivation” of the site.

“It sounds funny but it’s serious. Somebody should lose their diploma for that,” said Denis Zisko, of Tuzla’s Centre for Ecology and Energy, which shared the Bosnian project’s documents with Unearthed. His NGO has mounted a challenge to the amendments to block EPBiH from getting an environmental license for the dump.

The Tuzla plant, called Blok 7, is touted by politicians as a long-term solution to Bosnia’s energy supply. Construction costs will be covered mostly by a €613 million ($683m) loan from China’s ExIm Bank, signed in 2017. The majority of the construction will be carried out by China’s Gezhouba Group, with the smaller percentage going to local firms.

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The project has been beset from the beginning by criticisms it was not viable. It initially attracted the interest of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency and Hitachi Mitsubishi in 2014. They ran a feasibility study before pulling out, citing political instability and unprofitability.

In May 2018, Bosnia’s Institut Za Gradjevinarstvo issued a feasibility study for Blok 7 that concluded that EPBiH will be able to repay the Chinese loan as well as turning a “significant profit”.

But that study, instrumental in securing political support, predicts that the plant would not need to pay for carbon emissions on the ETS at all until 2034. It then predicts cost beyond 2034 using the average of the ETS price per tonne of CO2 from 2006 to 2018 – only €7.10 – as the predicted baseline, subject to an annual growth rate of 2%.

But the CO2 price has climbed sharply since 2018 and is now around €25. The European Commission wants to extend carbon pricing to reach net zero emissions by 2050, a strategy intended to shift the EU’s energy from fossil fuels to renewables.

“I don’t think you’ll find anyone in the EU who believes the price of carbon will fall to €7.10 by 2034. The suggestion is either bias or stupidity,” said Hvelplund at Aalborg University.

Bosnia and Serbia are members of the European Energy Community – the international body that extends the EU’s energy market and rules across Southeastern Europe. Both will need to sign up to the ETS by the time they join the EU.

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In Serbia, the 350MW unit called B3 in Kostolac is also in the advanced stages of planning, with Chinese finance agreed in 2014. A feasibility study performed in 2015 also dismisses potential pricing of carbon emissions – partially on the grounds the state will pay for them.

“Cost of permits for emitting CO2 were not included in the costs … because it is assumed that state of Serbia will overtake eventual obligation of payment,” the study says.

A related sensitivity analysis, however, does include costs per tonne of CO2 of $6.55 and $13.10 (€5.89 to €11.78) and says the project would lose money at the higher price.

Meanwhile, the environmental impact of expanding the existing Drmno coal mine to supply the new B3 unit, from nine million tonnes of coal production per year to 12, is also not considered in the documentation.

Zvezdan Kalmar of Serbian environmental NGO Cekor, which has challenged the plant’s environmental impact assessments in court alongside NGO CEE Bankwatch Network, said: “I see the study as false and misleading, and not showing the danger of this project to the public budget.“

Cekor shared the Serbian project’s documents with Unearthed.

Chinese offers of loans for coal projects have caught the eyes of politicians in Bosnia and Serbia since the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank have halted funding for coal projects, citing environmental concerns.

“China can provide long-term lending with low interest rates, and asks very few follow up questions,” said Jens Bastian, formerly chief economist for the European Agency for Reconstruction and author of the EBRD report Balkan Silk Road.

“But when you start reading the fine print, you need to ask questions.”

This article was co-published with Unearthed, Greenpeace UK’s award-winning journalism project.

The post China-backed coal plants on EU’s doorstep hide huge carbon costs  appeared first on Climate Home News.

Industrial units are majorly responsible for the rising levels of sulphur and nitrogen oxides as well as the pollutant particles PM 2.5 and PM 2.10 in Delhi air’s. Yet, not one has been prosecuted or fined under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981.

The act empowers state pollution control boards to take industries to court for violations such as exceeding the permissible emission limits or not installing the mandated pollution control equipment. If the offence is proved, the court can punish the managers of the industries with up to six years in prison, along with a fine.

Latest data released by the National Crime Records Bureau on 30 November shows that only 25 cases under the act were registered across India last year – 21 in Maharashtra and two each in Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. At least 35 people were arrested and 72 chargesheeted in these cases.

In 2014 and 2015, a total of 98 cases related to violation of the Air Pollution Act were filed – 55 in Maharashtra, 27 in Bengal, 10 in Rajasthan, five in Jharkhand and one in Karnataka – and 210 people arrested.

But Delhi, despite having the dubious distinction of being one of the world’s most polluted cities and with a clutch of polluting industries operating in it, hasn’t found any case of violation of the act.

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“The pollution control boards do not want to initiate any legal action,” the environment lawyer Ritwick Dutta said. “This is the reason we haven’t seen substantial improvement in the city’s air quality for years. Everything that is being done at the policy level is that broad guidelines are being issued. Where are the legal actions against the polluters for violating the law?”

This situation will change only when the violators are taken to court, Dutta added.

Delhi has two power plants, at least 20 big factories – with smokestacks more than 20 metres high – and about 25 clusters of small industries, many close to residential areas. According to a study by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, industrial units and thermal power plants account for almost 98% of sulphur oxide and 60% of nitrogen oxide emitted into Delhi’s air everyday.

The Delhi Pollution Control Committee, which is responsible for implementing the Air Act in the city, did not respond to queries emailed by Scroll.in.

That the Air Act has been poorly implemented since it was enacted over three and a half decades ago is hardly a secret. The law established central and state pollution control boards, and empowered them to impose emissions standards on industries and act against polluters. In fact, the law requires industries to take “consent to establish” and “consent to operate” from the state pollution control boards before starting operations.

However, various reviews of environmental laws show that the boards have limited their role to giving consent to establish and to operate industries. They barely monitor compliance with the standards or take legal action against the violators. But why?

“An officer authorised by the state pollution control boards has to file the case in the magistrate’s court,” said Shibani Ghosh, an environmental lawyer and a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. “Like other criminal cases, these cases go on for very long, sometimes even over decades. The boards have limited resources, personnel and time and that’s why they are not interested in filing and pursuing these cases.”

Modi and Adani: the old friends laying waste to India’s environment

In a 2015 paper titled “Reforming the Liability Regime for Air Pollution in India”, Ghosh wrote: “One of the main reasons why the current criminal liability regime has failed is that the overwhelming pendency in the courts, and the procedural hurdles of proving a case beyond reasonable doubt negated any fear of penal action. Non-compliance does not come at a very high cost; and regulated entities are willing to take the (minuscule) risk. This tendency needs to be reversed.”

While the National Crime Records Bureau’s data shows authorities across the country have little interest in filing cases against polluters, the authorities in Delhi seem particularly uninterested. A major violation of the Air Pollution Act occurs when industries exceed the emission standards.

Yet, as Scroll.in reported last month, the government has been sitting on the emission standards for major industries operating in Delhi for years. This is quite convenient for the polluters: with no standards in place, the question of violating them does not arise.

This article was originally published on Scroll.in.

The post No legal action taken against Delhi’s polluters since 2014 appeared first on Climate Home News.

The reason: a five-year anti-pollution drive has forced rural areas in northern China to switch from dirty coal to the cleaner alternative. The massive retrofitting campaign has sent gas prices soaring while many are left without heating systems at all.

In two villages close to Zhuozhou’s high-speed railway station, on the city’s eastern edge, villagers estimate only about one third of homes have been connected with natural gas supply, while others say they’re still anxiously waiting for the gas company to install furnaces. Their old fashioned coal stoves were all demolished as the government intensified efforts to phase out coal use in rural homes.

As temperatures drop to around -6C, they say nights are “increasingly unbearable”, especially for seniors and toddlers. A street cleaner said he had to burn firewood to keep warm. 

From 2012: Beijing announces drastic action to slash air pollution

“It is very cold, but there’s nothing we can do except wait,” a mother who was picking up her seven-year-old boy from school said, reluctant to be named.

Urban residents of Zhuozhou are more vocal about their grievances, as the sudden increase in natural gas demand means disruption in supply for existing users. 

“Every day, from 7pm to early next morning, there’s no heating. Sometimes the gas supply is not stable when cooking,” said a taxi driver who gave his surname as Feng.

Hebei provincial government, which administers Zhuozhou, issued an orange alert for natural gas supply on 28 November. It is the second on a four-tier warning system, indicating a demand-supply gap between 10% and 20% that will have a “relatively big impact” on economic and social operation.

The provincial government said it would cut supply for industrial users and prioritise use for residential and public buildings, including schools and hospitals. Neighbouring Shandong, Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces all report similar problems.

The area surrounding Beijing is one of the worst polluted in China thanks to its massive industrial production, particularly of iron and steel. Air quality traditionally deteriorates further each winter, with burning of raw coal in rural homes exacerbating factory and vehicle pollution.

In 2013, under a mounting public outcry for government to tackle the smog crisis, China’s State Council, or the cabinet, laid out targets to reduce levels of PM2.5 – the tiny particulate pollutants that pose the greatest health threats – in Beijing from around 90µg/m3 to 60µg/m3 by the end of 2017. The World Health Organisation recommends an annual mean of 10µg/m3. 

Nearby Tianjin municipality and Hebei province – which have worse air quality than Beijing – have been requested to slash PM2.5 particulates by 25%.

In China, such targets bear political importance. The nation’s leader Xi Jinping has placed increasing emphasis on protecting the environment. In 2014, Beijing’s former mayor Wang Anshun promised to “present his own head” to the public if the capital city failed to meet the mark.

Phasing out overcapacity in iron and steel, pushing for better compliances through campaign-based checkups and car use limitations to control vehicle emissions have made only marginal gains. Official statistics from Beijing show the city’s annual PM2.5 levels were still at 73 µg/m3 at the end of 2016.

Environmental authorities decided some rural areas in northern China – especially those close to Beijing – had to embark on the arduous program of retrofitting coal-fired heating system into gas-powered ones if Beijing and its surrounding areas were to meet the targets.

Thrust into the national spotlight, local cadres have rushed to comply by stripping coal heating systems from homes.

“The original plan was to shift coal to gas only in some ‘core areas’”, said He Kebin, head of Tsinghua University’s school of the environment, who also advises the central government on air pollution. “But it turned out local governments are too enthusiastic, greatly raising the demand.”

Liu Deshun, an official with National Energy Administration estimated that natural gas consumption in 2017 could hit 240 billion cubic metres, more than 14% higher than in 2016. He admitted “no one has expected” the surging demand.

Global carbon emissions: Rise in 2017, driven by China

There has also been a substantial underestimation of coal use – and subsequent demand for natural gas – in these rural areas, due to poor energy statistics.

The surge in demand has driven up prices for those who are connected. The official China Energy News reported price for liquefied natural gas (LNG) has doubled in two weeks since mid-November, dealing a heavy blow for both industrial and residential users.

A villager in Zhuozhou who was lucky enough to have gas supply – although unstable – said he was very worried about the rising cost of keeping warm. He expects to spend more than 6000 yuan (around $900) – or twice of what he paid for coal – this winter. 

Studies have shown China’s middle class urban dwellers are increasingly willing to pay for cleaner air. Yet this winter, vulnerable groups in less developed areas are bearing the brunt of the cleanup costs.

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Eight Delhiites die each day from the city’s bad air. In response, the regional government has made efforts to tackle pollution from coal plants and tailpipe exhaust. But any benefits these policies might produce are threatened by skyrocketing imports of a fuel more polluting than coal or diesel.

Petroleum coke – known as petcoke – is a high-carbon residue produced during the refinement of heavy oils. In its raw form, the high-carbon fuel can be used as a cheap substitute for coal.

Delhi’s environmental authorities say petcoke, cut into coal power station feeds around the capital, is now one of the major sources of smog in the city.

In many parts of the world, petcoke is restricted because of its toxicity. In India however, the fuel is unregulated and burned freely. In this regulatory void, demand has soared, rising 23% a year for the last five years. The country imported 20 times more petcoke in 2016 than it did in 2011.

Delhi is in a race against time. The Supreme Court has ordered the use of petcoke to end but the government has failed to ban or regulate the fuel. Activists and public health officials are desperate to convince politicians to act before winter’s still, stagnant weather conditions begin to pool smog above the capital.

(Data: resourcetrade.earth)

When burned, petcoke emits 5-10% more climate change-causing CO2 than coal. But its true filthiness is revealed in the toxic smog it creates. The key air pollution-causing contaminant is sulphur, which creates oxide gases and particles, both of which are harmful to human health.

In Delhi, a (relatively lax) regulation limits sulphur in coal to 4,000 parts per million. The National Capital Territory’s environmental agency (EPCA) says petcoke being burned around the capital contains sulphur up to 72,000ppm. Petcoke emissions also contain significant amounts of toxic heavy metals – particularly vanadium, nickel and iron.

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Petcoke’s primary use in India is in cement-making plants, where the process limits pollution. But when it is used in the coal power stations, the pollutants emerge unadulterated.

In February, India’s Supreme Court released a finding that called the sulphur content in petcoke “extremely high” and said the fuel was a “major cause of pollution in Delhi”. The court directed the national government to either ban petcoke’s use in power generation outright or place restrictions on the sulphur content, which would be a de facto ban.

So far, no action has been taken. The ministry of environment has asked for more time. The court has given the government a final deadline of 24 October to come up with a plan.

This is a problem that begins, in part, in the tar pits of Alberta and the refineries of the US Gulf coast. India produces its own petcoke. But local refineries can’t keep up with demand and the country has emerged from nowhere to become the largest importer of petcoke on earth.

In 2016, 87% of India’s overseas petcoke came from the US, the world’s largest producer. Its use in US power generation has plummeted due to heavy restrictions. As a result, US refiners and traders are looking to markets with looser regulation and, say environmental campaigners at both ends of the supply chain, fuelling India’s airborne public health crisis.

Until 2014, China was the biggest buyer of US petcoke. But Asia’s largest economy has been on a political journey with air pollution. Sulphur restrictions, brought in in 2016, economic downturn and local bans on new power plants combined to stifle US petcoke’s access to the far east powerhouse. Between 2013 and 2014, the trade was cut in half. (Japan also remains a stalwart consumer of US petcoke.)

Global trade in petcoke is dominated by one country, the US (Data: resourcetrade.earth)

“India has become the dumping ground of petcoke from countries like USA and China,” Sunita Narain, who heads the Centre for Science and Environment, told the Economic Times in February. Narain is not only pushing for a domestic ban on petcoke’s use in power plants but an import ban as well.

Lorne Stockman, a senior research analyst at Oil Change International, said much of the US petcoke was left over from the refinement of heavy oil from Canada’s tar sands. Environmental restrictions in the US prevent it from being burned in most power stations, unless they are fitted with pollution scrubbing technology.

“The US refiners have invested in this heavy oil refining strategy in order to take advantage of the cheap dirty feed stock from Canada,” he told Climate Home. “Then this waste product is dumped into markets that will accept it. It’s a perfect example of the industry maximising its profits while maximising its pollution.”

It is uncertain how much petcoke is being burned around Delhi, according to an EPCA report, as refiners do not collect data on how much is being sold into the capital territory. It is also uncertain what proportion comes from the US, as opposed to domestic refineries. During site visits, however, EPCA inspectors found industries were using imported product.

The trade within India is controlled by some of the biggest, most influential and least transparent corporations in the country, including Adani Enterprises. Adani’s website says it sources petcoke from the US.

Climate Home contacted some of the largest US petcoke exporters. None returned emails except for Ahmed Jama, CEO and president of Florida-based PermuTrade.

“I cannot speak for other companies,” he said. “But I do know petcoke is being sold into the power generation industry and steel industry [in India].”

PermuTrade is a relatively small fish. Jama said his company transports between 0.6Mt and 1.2Mt of petcoke every year, 75% of which goes to the cement industry in India. According to Jacobs Consultancy, Koch Carbon trades more than 20Mt globally every year. Oxbow, another company owned by the Koch brothers, also ranks among the largest global traders.

Jama said his company sells only to cement plants to ensure the “environment is protected”. “We could make a lot more money selling petcoke to many other industries, like the power generation industry and steel industry but we are not all about the money,” he said, adding that an India-wide ban on petcoke “might not be the greatest idea”.

“Petcoke should be banned or limited for captive power plants but not for cement plants. There should be clear sulphur emission thresholds in place for companies to comply with and be held accountable to. If petcoke is cut, the government will need to provide cheap coal or they won’t have power,” said Jama.

In fact, environment authorities are not pursuing a ban on use in cement. But they are trying to control power plant emissions before Delhi again disappears beneath the smog of industry.

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The country is also home to seven of the world’s top 10 ports, so shipping is becoming a major source of air pollution in cities, such as Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Shanghai. An estimated 18,000 premature deaths in China in 2013 were caused by air pollution from oceangoing ships.

So it’s encouraging that in 2016 the government started phasing-in regulations forcing ships to use fuels with 0.5% sulphur content while at berth and near major Chinese ports. This low-sulphur fuel contains 80% less sulphur than standard marine fuels and using it at berth can dramatically reduce air pollution and public health risks.

The new Domestic Emission Control Area (DECA) regulations are an important step towards reducing shipping pollution. The government first implemented the regulations in Shanghai and three other ports in the Yangtze River Delta last April, then in Shenzhen in October. Beginning this year, fuel switching at berth was expanded to eleven core ports, including four in and near the heavily industrialised Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (Jing-Jin-Ji) region.

Map of the Domestic Emission Control Areas (Source: NRDC)

But regulations are only as good as their enforcement. Promisingly, China has been vigorously enforcing them.

Between April and November 2016, Shanghai’s enforcement agency inspected some 1,858 ships, caught 55 ships violating the rules and issued more than US$100,000 (690,000 yuan) in penalties. Two months after the regulations were phased in at four ports in Bohai Bay, two ships, including a foreign flagged ship, were caught using non-compliant fuels.

China’s success in catching dozens of ships using high-polluting fuels makes enforcement look easy, but it’s not, and it’s going to get harder.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) requires ship operators to keep bunker delivery notes on board and maintain samples of fuel collected during refueling to demonstrate compliance with marine fuel regulations. But these are susceptible to fraud or forgery.

In addition, oceangoing ships – the main target of the DECA regulations – are typically equipped with multiple fuel tanks connected to the engines and or boilers. Even if there are tanks storing low-sulphur fuel on board, there is no guarantee that such fuel is being used at port.

Taking fuel samples close to any operating engine is the most reliable way to monitor compliance but that takes time, and for port regions with limited enforcement resources it is difficult to inspect enough ships and collect enough fuel samples to establish a strong enforcement presence.

By 2019, enforcement is set to become even more challenging. The regulations will be extended to cover all ships in the DECA waters out to 12 nautical miles. International maritime law prohibits stopping or boarding a foreign ship passing through a country’s territorial waters. So it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for enforcement officials to take fuel samples from a ship that travels through DECA waters but calls at a port outside the DECAs.

To tackle these challenges, China is searching for better ways to identify violating ships. The good news is that the EU, North America and Hong Kong have been enforcing marine sulphur regulations for years. Together, they offer some useful lessons for China.

Enforcement agencies have a limited number of staff and are under pressure to avoid causing vessel delays. It makes sense then to target onboard inspections at ships most likely to break the rules. By measuring emissions remotely rather than taking onboard fuel samples, and reviewing past compliance records, officials can screen for high-emitting ships visiting Chinese ports.

The EU has shown that this works. It has just completed a two-year project examining the feasibility of remote measurement devices fitted on the shore, bridges, planes and drones to effectively screen air emissions of a large number of ships in a short time.

The EU has also built a database allowing member states to record and exchange data from onboard sulphur inspections and to input remote measurement findings indicating non-compliance. China could do the same to record and share DECA inspection findings among its local enforcement teams to better target ships with a history of violation.

China could also explore exchanging inspection records with European counterparts to further strengthen its deterrent.

The Netherlands, Sweden, and Canada are all piloting fuel testing systems that can estimate sulphur content in less than five minutes, meaning that regulators only have to send samples for lab testing when high sulphur levels are indicated.

As well as saving money, quick screening can justify detaining ships until lab results are confirmed, which is a protocol used in the Netherlands. Unnecessary detention causes delays, which increases costs and harms the reputation of shipping companies.

Ensuring that low-sulphur fuel is available is just as important as making sure that compliant fuel is being used. In the US, the Environmental Protection Agency manages a comprehensive fuel quality assurance programme. The Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department also regularly takes samples from bunkering barges and oil terminals to monitor fuel quality. Both the US and Hong Kong report a high compliance rate with their respective fuel quality standards. China should also step up efforts to ensure the quality of marine fuels.

Phased implementation of DECA regulations (Source: NRDC)

Although China has been building its enforcement capacity and carrying out lots of inspections to verify DECA compliance, enforcement is expected to become harder as regulations are extended to cover more ports and bigger areas.

As the price of DECA-compliant fuel is more than 50% higher than high sulphur residual fuel, there is a cost incentive for unscrupulous companies to avoid compliance.

Luckily other regions are managing similar challenges, meaning China won’t have to chart a course through unknown waters to enhance its enforcement and realise the benefits to its air quality and public health.

Fung Freda is a consultant for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Zhu Zhixi is a project manager with the Natural Resources Defense Council. This article was first published on China Dialogue.

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She has sold vegetables beside Nairobi’s Kariokor roundabout for seven years. Cars and minibuses grind through the intersection where four clogged arteries meet in this chronically congested city. She sits on a roadside patch, her nose and mouth level with the exhausts that shudder and belch just a few metres away.

Wanjiru developed asthma when she moved to Nairobi as a 23-year-old – she is now 45. Her medication keeps the condition pretty much under control.

“It doesn’t happen as much, but when it is cold or when the air is really bad,” she says in Swahili and through an interpreter. She knows the pollution is no good, but “there is no other space to have the stall”.

Mary Wanjiru’s stall, just a few metres from the roadside at Kariokor. (Photo: Karl Mathiesen)

It’s impossible to know just how bad the long term impacts of Wanjiru’s workplace will be for her. Exposure has different effects on different people. If pollution levels were known, then an educated guess could be made, but at Kariokor like everywhere else in this choking city, the air goes unmonitored.

Yet respiratory infections are Kenya’s biggest cause of illness and, according to Victor Nthusi, a scientific associate with the UN Environment Programme (Unep), health ministry statistics show the problem is getting worse. The overwhelming majority of cities in Africa are a blank space wherein the public have no data on the impact of traffic, factories, cookstoves and the fires of cottage industry.

“No-one ever complains about the pollution because you can’t see it,” says Nthusi. “So part of the strategy around tackling the issue is advocacy. Letting people access the information, make sense out of it… and try to get the message home.”

Most Kenyans ride with the windows down, exposing themselves to a cool breeze… and the fumes of diesel and petrol (Photo: Karl Mathiesen)

Exploratory studies conducted by Unep have found Kariokor is one of the most polluted places in Nairobi. Nthusi says living and working beside the roundabout “might shorten your life expectancy and it would definitely have an effect on your health”.

Climate Home asks Wanjiru if she knew about the Unep studies – which were reported in the local press. She shakes her head. Does she think the government will help? She laughs. “Maybe,” she says.

Across the roundabout, an informal rubbish dump along the banks of the Nairobi river, which runs black, has been set on fire. The smoke drifts into the mechanics shops that line the side of the Ngara Ring Road. Again, just metres from the gridlock, dozens of men spend their days breathing the cocktail of smoke and traffic fumes.

Simon Ngunzi Kisko, 38, has repaired rubber bushes – the little pads that sit in a car’s suspension – in a roadside shack here for 17 years.

“Sometimes there are trucks, the ones that dump the garbage. They have a very faulty exhaust that emits fumes that makes us very worried,” he says, also in Swahili.

The Nairobi river runs just below the roundabout. The word Nairobi means ‘place of cool waters’. (Photo: Karl Mathiesen)

In 2005, Kisko checked himself into a nearby US-run medical centre, convinced he was suffering from tuberculosis. But he was diagnosed with a respiratory disease likely caused by pollution. “I recovered, but sometimes I feel the smoke is choking me. I feel my chest is closed up,” he says.

He sees the same problems affecting his workmates, but the men rarely talk to one another about their health. “That’s a personal thing,” he says.

Despite their suffering, Kisko says he is surprised to learn that Kariokor is among the most polluted places in Nairobi. Although this may reflect less his view of Kariokor, than his general experience of Nairobi’s air.

He is sceptical of whether a monitoring programme that informed the public would make a difference.

“Either way, we have no way of advocating for better, cleaner air. Often the county government overlooks our concerns,” he says.

Kisko may have reasons to feel disenfranchised, but the Kenyan constitution provides him with the right to a clean environment. Nthusi says: “Even the guys at Kariokor may not know it, but… they can demand that right from their immediate representatives or the national government.”

“I feel my chest is closed up.” Simon Ngunzi Kisko works in this mechanics shop beside the Kariokor roundabout (Photo: Karl Mathiesen)

Kenyans are in no way alone. Globally, outdoor air pollution kills more than 3 million people every year. Yet more than one billion people remain in countries that do not monitor the air.

History elsewhere suggests that when citizens gain information about air pollution, political action follows. In Beijing and Delhi, citizens who had lived for years with obvious, choking smogs, were galvanised by figures that showed their cities’ air exceeded World Health Organisation limits by many, many times. These paved the way for regulations on coal and transport that also benefited the global fight against climate change by simultaneously cutting carbon emissions.

In Kenya, the government is showing signs it may be beginning to take the crisis seriously. Air quality regulations have been in place since 2014. An air pollution committee has been formed within the national environment ministry, although committee members said they would not speak to Climate Home publicly.

Owners of minibuses – known as matatu – decorate them in order to attract customers. These are often some of the most visibly polluting vehicles on Nairobi’s streets. (Photo: Karl Mathiesen)

According to Nthusi, the committee has approached Unep for input on a programme that would include some form of monitoring. The initial purchase costs for monitoring equipment have fallen ten-fold as new, less precise units designed for developing country budgets have been developed. But in Kenya, “whether or not it happens in the short term remains to be seen,” he says.

No matter how fast political action comes, it will be too late for Nelly Lisimba. She never did look after her asthma, says her brother Hillary, despite regular bouts triggered by cool air and pollution. When she died at just 26, Lisimba says his grief was shot through with guilt.

“I’ve always blamed myself for that loss, because I happened to know how to manage my asthma from a very young age. And for some reason I did not take time to do the same for my sister,” he says. “I always feel like I let her down in a way.”

“I feel I lost one, but I can save one hundred.” Hillary Lisimba at his office on the outskirts of Nairobi (Photo: Karl Mathiesen)

Lisimba now leads the nascent Living with Asthma Foundation, a Facebook group and would-be NGO that aims to spread public information about managing the disease.

While triggers for attacks vary, air pollution is a common cause. “The problem is people don’t exactly know these things until you have figures and they actually show you this is bad,” he says. “If we can’t manage these companies, and their pollution, we need to manage the people – who are more than these companies.”

He says a public notification system – an app or social media account – that could give real-time readouts for pollution would make a big difference for sufferers and have political consequences.

“I feel I lost one, but I can save one hundred,” says Lisimba. “No-one should die from asthma.”

The post The frontline of the dirty air crisis, where no-one keeps a record appeared first on Climate Home News.

As depicted in the Netflix series The Crown (which last year aired on Chinese streaming sites) the disaster seemingly came out of nowhere, as sunny blue skies suddenly gave way to a choking, blinding, fog that enveloped the city and was more severe than anything many had seen before.

Lack of visibility brought normal life to a halt, with airports closed, rail service severely delayed, and road traffic extremely dangerous for drivers and pedestrians alike. Much like people in our own time who refuse to accept the scientific consensus that human consumption of fossils fuels is causing climate change, many Londoners initially looked upon the fog as a natural occurrence; that it was, to quote the title of this programme episode, an “Act of God.”

“Unusual” weather

Contrary to Churchill’s assertions that the fog enveloping London was nothing more than an unusual weather event, experts had long known that London fog consisted of much more than water vapour. It also contained large quantities of fine particulates and acidic gases produced by the city’s millions of large and small coal fires.

For many generations of Londoners, coal (later supplemented by gas or electricity derived from coal) had provided residents of the British capital with nearly all of the energy that they used for heating, cooking, transport, manufacturing, and lighting. Although it was plentiful, versatile, and cost-effective, coal came at a high price in terms of its impact on human health and the environment, as well as on the miners who risked their lives and lungs in the dangerous and dirty work of bringing it to the surface.

Because of London’s large population, its density, and its dependence on enormous quantities of relatively dirty bituminous coal, it had suffered from serious and year-round air pollution for hundreds of years, as well as repeated, though largely ineffective, efforts to combat the smoke plague.

The problem often reached its greatest extent during the winter months when chilly weather and diminished daylight prompted residents to increase their consumption of coal at the same time that these seasonal conditions increased the likelihood of foggy weather.

Usually, breezes carried away these smoke-filled fogs within hours or sunshine burned them away, yet occasionally they persisted and grew worse. When this happened, no inhabitant of London could escape their impact. In addition to limiting visibility to metres, such fogs made it difficult for many people to breathe. Hospital admissions spiked, as did the mortality rate.

Neslon’s column during the 1952 smog disaster. (Source: geograph.org.uk/N T Stobbs)

Explaining the fog

Yet the fog that descended upon London in 1952 was far worse than even the most severe fogs that most of the city’s roughly nine million residents had ever encountered. It originated not from a single cause, but from a rare and unlucky confluence of factors that resulted in the most severe air pollution episode in London’s storied history.

What were these factors?

To be sure, the time of year and the weather both played a crucial role. The fog struck within weeks of the winter solstice, which meant that the hours of daylight were extremely short. The disaster also occurred during a period of cold weather, which made fog more persistent. Yet all these phenomena were common in London most years from November through January.

An additional, and highly significant, meteorological factor at play in December 1952 was unusually still air, coupled with a strong temperature inversion (or “anticyclone”), which acted as a lid over the city. Rather than rising high into the atmosphere or being carried downwind into the countryside, the smoke which poured from London’s chimneys filled the streets, where it mixed with moist air to form a toxic amalgam: smoke fog, or smog.

As visibility declined and the temperature dropped, people burned even more coal for heating and lighting, which resulted in ever-more polluted air.

Despite his initial insistence that the crisis was a freak natural occurrence unrelated to human actions and beyond the capacity of policymakers to influence, Churchill quickly acknowledged that the fog covering London in December 1952 was made more intense, and a danger to health, because of the coal smoke it contained. And it was rising coal consumption that provided the final ingredient in the coincidental combination of factors that caused this tragedy.

In 1952, Britain was only gradually recovering from the destruction and debt burden of the Second World War, and many essentials, including coal, remained rationed. Yet just before the notorious fog disaster hit London, Churchill’s government had announced that the poorest and most polluting grade of coal (known as “nutty slack”) could be obtained without ration coupons. Spurred by official advertising that encouraged people to stock up on fuel and burn it without the constraints that rationing had imposed, consumption shot up.

A catalyst for action

As depicted in the Netflix drama, the ensuing fog made it all but impossible for thousands of Londoners to breathe, and hospitals quickly filled to capacity as people sought help. Yet medicine could offer little solace. Thousands of people essentially suffocated. Others, as also shown in The Crown, perished in accidents brought about by the near-zero visibility that blanketed London.

The precise death toll cannot be known exactly, but the number of fatalities recorded in Britain’s capital during the week of the fog greatly exceeded the week that had preceded it, and it remained much higher than normal for several weeks thereafter. The total number of deaths attributed to the fog incident may be as high as 16,000 – roughly half as many Londoners as died from bombs during the Second World War.

The political crisis that followed this disaster forced the government to investigate the problems of air pollution not just in London, but in Britain as a whole, and it served as a crucial catalyst to the passage of the far-reaching Clean Air Act in 1956.

Largely overlooked at the time, however, was the fact that chronic exposure to polluted air killed thousands more people every year than acute crises such as the fog disaster of 1952. Nationally, this problem was so extensive that it likely depressed the overall life expectancy of people in Britain compared to similar countries less dependent on such a dirty source of energy.

Today, at a time when the world’s two most populous countries face severe and growing air pollution as a result of coal and petroleum consumption, London’s experience of more than a half-century ago is worth remembering. Days or even weeks of particularly noxious air quality garner headlines and shock many people from their complacency, but the larger danger is the less noticeable – but deadlier – pollution in aggregate that is experienced by millions every day of the year.

Peter Thorsheim is an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and is the author of Inventing Pollution: Coal, Smoke, and Culture in Britain since 1800.

The post Lessons from London’s 1952 fog could save millions today appeared first on Climate Home News.

As many as 2.7 million premature births a year – 18% of the global total – can be linked to outdoor air pollution, a study in Environment International found.

When women give birth at less than 37 weeks, their offspring are more likely to die in infancy or suffer from learning difficulties, hearing and sight problems through their life.

“This study highlights that air pollution may not just harm people who are breathing the air directly – it may also seriously affect a baby in its mother’s womb,” said Chris Malley, lead author of the study.

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Previous research, mainly in the US and Europe, has established the level of small particulates – PM2.5 – in the air as one of the factors that affects the preterm birth rate.

For this latest study, researchers took those findings and applied them to 2010 air quality and health data from 183 countries to estimate the global scale of the problem.

Pregnant women in China, India, the Middle East and western Africa were most likely to go into labour early as a result of hazy conditions, they found.

Percentage of total preterm births which were associated with ambient PM2.5 in 2010 using a low concentration cut-off of a) 4.3 μg m− 3, and b) 10 μg m− 3 (Source: Environment International/Preterm birth associated with maternal fine particulate matter exposure)

Since women cannot generally avoid breathing polluted air while pregnant, solutions must go to the source, said co-author Johan Kuylenstierna, policy director at the Stockholm Environment Institute.

“We are trying to support a number of countries to develop strategies to reduce the pollution,” he told Climate Home. “Each region has its own particular sources.”

Many of the policy options to tackle harmful particulates also reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change. For example, replacing old diesel vehicles with cleaner transport or returning agricultural waste to the land instead of burning it.

Report: Smoggy Hebei offers hope China can win war on air pollution

The prospect of children suffering from avoidable disabilities may spur action, suggested Kuylenstierna.

“The reason we started this research is: a lot of the reporting on health impacts of small particulate matter has been about premature deaths, from lung cancer, heart disease and so on,” he said.

“Sometimes when we talk to the policymakers in developing countries, it leaves them a little bit cold. How premature is premature? Mainly, it is affecting old people.

“They want to have evidence of a broader range of health impacts, especially on children… Hopefully this further evidence will increase interest in reducing these sources of pollution.”

Trump timeline: week one of the US climate action crackdown

The crossover between climate change, air pollution and health is also the subject of a summit in Atlanta, US on Thursday.

Quietly cancelled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after Donald Trump took the presidency, the meeting was resurrected by Al Gore as a symbol of defiance.

Harvard Global Health Institute and the American Public Health Association supported keeping the show on the road, in the face of an administration perceived as hostile to environmental protections.

“Today we face a challenging political climate, but the climate crisis shouldn’t be political,” said Gore, a climate advocate and former US vice president. “It is not only the greatest existential crisis we face: it is also causing a global health emergency, where the stakes are life and death.”

Report: Medical journal the Lancet to launch Planetary Health title

A commentary in Environmental Health Perspectives last week highlighted the health threats to children, in particular, from burning fossil fuels.

“The science is clear that reducing our dependence on fossil fuels would achieve highly significant health and economic benefits for children worldwide, both immediately and well into the future,” said author Frederica Perera, professor at Columbia University, in a statement.

“Knowing this, we have a moral imperative to enact child-centered energy and climate policies to protect this most vulnerable group.”

The post Air pollution linked to 2.7 million premature births a year appeared first on Climate Home News.

City leaders from Paris, Atlanta, Cape Town, Seoul and Vancouver are among those set to sign up to a new declaration in Mexico City at the annual C40 Cities Mayor’s summit.

“We all share a commitment to adapt, revitalize and mitigate climate change impacts in our communities,” said Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris and incoming C40 Cities chair.

Climate Home understands wider public transport networks and incentives to encourage electric cars, cycling and walking are areas where city leaders will pledge rapid investment.

On Thursday the mayors of Paris, Mexico City, Madrid and Athens announced that by the mid-2020s they would phase out cars and trucks powered by diesel engines, which release high levels of toxins and particulates.

According to the World Health Organisation an estimated 3 million people a year die from outdoor air pollution, a figure that rises to 6.5m when impacts from indoor fumes are included.

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Around 80% of urban areas have air pollution levels above those that are considered healthy, said the WHO in a report earlier this year, calling for greater support for green transport, heating and energy networks.

The renewed drive by cities comes as concerns grow over how Donald Trump will tackle climate change when he assumes the US presidency in January 2017.

During his campaign the billionaire labelled global warming a hoax and said he would roll back president Barack Obama’s plan to green the energy system.

Mayors around the world appear to disagree, with over 7000 cities now signed up to a new ‘Global Covenant’ on climate action chaired by UN cities envoy Mike Bloomberg and European Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič.

“The leadership of cities is more important than ever in the fight against climate change,” Bloomberg said in a statement.

“This group’s diverse experience from cities on every continent will help support local action and speed global progress.”

A carbon price, a coal phase-out and… two new tar sands pipelines. Trudeau accused of mixed messages on climate: https://t.co/LvW1RkQbOQ pic.twitter.com/3TqljIHQ98

— Climate Home News (@ClimateHome) December 1, 2016

Tagged the ‘largest ever led city coalition’ the alliance spans 199 countries and represents 600 million people, nearly 10% of the world’s population.

All members have promised to start the transition towards low carbon or carbon neutral cities resilient to extreme weather events, and have committed to delivering clean and cheap energy to citizens.

UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa and her predecessor Christiana Figueres have been appointed advisors to the Covenant’s board, joining mayors from Morocco, South Korea, India and Canada.

“As the former Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, I know just how significant city action is and what an important and critical platform the Global Covenant of Mayors will be for all of us,” said Figueres in an emailed statement.

“My involvement will help ensure the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy serves to instigate even greater action by cities and local governments in support of the Agreement and countries’ climate action plans,” said Espinosa, who presided over her first UN climate summit last month in Marrakech, Morocco.

The post Mayors signal desire to fight climate change at city level appeared first on Climate Home News.

Belgrade (Pic: {Pixabay)

By Alex Kirby

One dollar in three earned by the economy of Serbia is accounted for by those of its citizens who die early because of the country’s soaring air pollution.

The finding, by the World Health Organisation (WHO), is contained in a report published by a campaign group that argues for an end to coal-burning throughout Europe by 2040 to protect health and to reduce the carbon emissions that drive climate change.

The WHO list of the economic cost of deaths from air pollution (both outdoor and indoor), as a percentage of GDP, puts Serbia in second place, with 33.5% of its gross domestic product spent on this increasingly avoidable mortality.

For comparison, the UK figure is barely one-tenth as large: 3.7%.

Top of the list, which covers all the countries of the WHO’s European region, is Georgia, at 35.2%. The report, however, concentrates on the West Balkans, and so does not include the Caucasus countries.

The WHO published the list in 2010, but the figures it reports are the latest available and were repeated in another report published by the WHO and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2015.

The group campaigning for an end to coal-burning in Europe is the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL).

It says the public health costs from coal-fired power plants in five Western Balkan countries, with seven of the 10 most polluting coal plants in the whole of Europe, may be as high as €8.5 billion (US$9.4 billion) a year.

The calculation by HEAL includes costs directly related to air pollution from the plants, including from premature deaths, respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions, new cases of chronic bronchitis and lower respiratory problems, medication use, and days of restricted activity caused by ill-health, including lost working days.

The region depends heavily on coal and lignite and air pollutants in the Western Balkans, HEAL says, are at levels up to two-and-a-half times above national air quality safety limits, well beyond WHO recommendations.

The WHO says that “air pollution at current levels in European cities is responsible for a significant burden of deaths, hospital admissions and exacerbation of symptoms, especially for cardiorespiratory disease”.

It adds: “This potential for a major improvement in population health should be taken into account when developing energy policies”

Anne Stauffer, deputy director of HEAL, says the report “uncovers the myth that coal is the cheapest form of energy.

“Opting out of coal offers the prospect of a healthier and more prosperous future. The EU should encourage the change to a healthy energy future by significantly increasing financial support for renewables and energy savings.”

The report says a significant part of the Balkan pollution is carried on the wind and affects people elsewhere in Europe. It says that Europe, in this context, includes countries as far away as western Russia and Norway, and the EU’s current efforts to ensure cleaner air in member countries should not stop at its own borders.

Strong support

There is strong local support for phasing out coal among leading health policy-makers in the Western Balkans, HEAL says.

Serbia’s State Secretary for Health, Professor Berislav Vekić, says: “Reducing the level of pollutants in the air would produce very significant health benefits. This potential for a major improvement in population health should be taken into account when developing energy policies.”

Garret Tankosic-Kelly, principal and founder of SEE Change Net, says: “Choosing cleaner air is a no-brainer.

“Our expert energy models clearly show that the enormous potential for solar, wind and biomass – combined with much more energy efficiency – would lead to a cleaner, fairer, and more efficient energy system in South East Europe, and for the same cost as the currently planned investments in dirty lignite.”

Governments, including those in the Western Balkans, are being urged by HEAL and SEE Change Net to close existing coal plants and not to build any new ones.

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

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(Pic: Joe de Sousa/Flickr)

By Ed King

The mayors of 20 leading European cities say high levels of air pollution from diesel cars pose a threat to their citizens, and want tougher EU-wide action to regulate emissions.

In a letter published on Tuesday they say new rules governing car emissions offer a “permit to pollute” at the expense of public health.

Last month MEPs voted against a plan to close gaps in air pollution controls on new diesel cars, meaning limits on nitrogen oxide (NOx) will be effectively be relaxed from 2019.

“It is unacceptable to introduce emissions thresholds, only to allow them to be violated,” says the letter, which is supported by leaders in Paris, Athens, Madrid, Amsterdam, Milan, Oslo and Warsaw.

“What can we say to parents whose children are suffering from acute respiratory disorders, or to elderly people and to the most vulnerable?”

London: Fronting up to a global pollution battle

London Mayor Boris Johnson was invited to support the protest, but a source at Paris City Hall which coordinated the letter said they had not received a positive response to their invitation.

The UK capital has some of the highest levels of NOX emissions in the EU and the issue has dominated this year’s mayoral election race with candidates pledging to phase out diesel taxis.

Other European cities are already taking radical steps to cut pollution levels.

Madrid plans to ban up to 50% of cars from its historic centre when air quality levels drop, while Milan and Paris have cut vehicle numbers on smoggy days.

Oslo has published a proposal to stop all private vehicles from driving though the centre by 2019.

The post Europe’s capitals say diesel cars threaten health of residents appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Joe Hunt/Flickr)

By Liu Qin in Beijing

In his address to China’s National People’s Congress on March 5, Premier Li Keqiang called for “heavy blows” to be struck against air and water pollution that have exacted a heavy toll on large swaths of the world’s most populous country. 

Li cited targets to improve environmental standards across the board, but focused in particular on measures to tackle urban smog that would deliver “good air quality” day readings for 80% of the year.

The targets are part of the forthcoming 13th Five-Year Plan (FYP), a policy blueprint that will shape China’s economic development over the next five years up to 2021.

The premier’s speech was delivered on the opening day of the session and set the tone for discussions that will continue until March 16.

The full list of proposals will not be published until the close of the twin legislative sessions. However, Li’s speech has already indicated that the government will limit factory emissions of tiny harmful particulate matter (PM2.5) – a major cause of air pollution – down by 25%.

This is the first time in the China’s history that a specific PM2.5 target has been included in a FYP.

Other main targets include:
– reduction of emissions from coal burning industries and vehicles
– boost cleaner and more efficient use of coal
– promote the use of electricity and natural gas in place of coal
– support for wind, solar and bio power sectors; increase in proportion of clean energy
– encourage the use of waste straw as a resource
– reduction in-field burning
– implementation of control measures to deal with air pollution

Professor Hu Angang of Tsinghua University’s School of Public Policy and Management said that the 13th Five-Year Plan will provide a guide for how ‘green development’ will be implemented, and how it will align with economic growth.

“Achieving green growth means reducing energy and resource intensity and decoupling the emissions of key pollutants from economic growth and urbanisation,” he said.

Li spoke of recent efforts to restructure China’s economy. Since the implementation of the Five-Year Plan, the service industry has grown considerably,  energy intensity per unit of GDP has fallen by 18.2%; and emissions of key pollutants have dropped by over 12%.

By 2020, he said, the intensity of water use per unit of GDP will fall by 23%, energy intensity by a further 15%, and carbon intensity by 18%.

The premier also said that China is addressing over-production in its energy intensive industries, such as construction and manufacturing, through corporate restructuring (the details of which remain undisclosed).

In the last three years, the closure of inefficient firms has removed 90 million tonnes of steel production, 230 million tonnes of concrete production, over 76 million tonnes of plate glass, and 1 million tonnes of aluminium from China’s bloated manufacturing sector.

In China, local governments have traditionally had three functions: to manage public services; social welfare; and market regulations. A fourth important function is being added to that list, that of environmental protection.

Local governments

Hu Angang told chinadialogue that the 13th FYP is proving the local governments with the tools and targets to switch orientation.

“In the design of the 13th FYP, we’ve seen a shift from talking about industrial counties, industrial cities and industrial provinces, to talking about green development. China has already entered the era of green development… [which will] reduce [industrial] capacity by shutting down energy-intensive and polluting firms.”

Manish Bapna, executive vice president of the World Resources Institute, hopes to see the 13th FYP include ambitious targets for action on the use of clean energy, the tackling of air pollution, forest-creation and dealing with soil and water pollution – and more importantly, a real shift in how the Chinese economy grows.

“I hope to see the Chinese government do more to change the traditional method of development, which is reliant on increasing supply. Often people think increasing the water supply means building more dams, increasing the energy supply means building more power stations. But actually we should look at how to reduce demand and decouple resource consumption from economic growth.”

Something in the air

Smog appeared to be the focus of discussion both inside and outside of Beijing’s assembly halls. On the first day of the Lianghui Assembly, the city issued an amber pollution alert, meaning that schools and kindergartens were advised to keep children inside.

Song Zuying, a member of the CPPCC and famous singer, joked that while members from Beijing might be used to the foul air, those from other parts of the country would have to acclimatise.

While official figures showed air quality in China had improved in 2015, many people did not feel this was the case, One journalist pointed out at a CPPCC press conference. Wang Guoqing, a CPPCC spokesperson, responded that ending smog will require a sustained effort.

“Pollution does not form overnight, nor can our efforts to end it see immediate effect,” said Wang.

According to media reports, air pollution was one of the main topics at local-level Lianghui meetings, with local government work reports citing specific smog targets for the first time.

Green belts

In Beijing, the city government intends to reduce PM2.5 levels by 5% in 2016. In northeastern Jilin, officials will launch a clean air action plan.

At the national policy level, CPPCC member Xu Jiankang proposed a smog tax and a congestion charge in order to reduce vehicle emissions. People’s Representative Li Sheng said that residential and other buildings should be required to include internal green belts to help clean the air and reduce smog.

Meanwhile, Yi Jianqiang, a Chinese Academy of Sciences expert added that the precise causes of smog are still unclear and need to be further investigated.

The view that smog is caused by vehicle exhaust fumes is more popular with the public than with scientists, he said.

This article first appeared on China Dialogue

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(Pic: Jean Etienne Minh Duy/Flickr)

By Joanna Peasland

Dangerous air quality levels in Indian cities are putting the population’s health at serious risk, as new satellite images reveal pollution concentrations equal to those of China.

Delhi, Agra, Kampur and Patna are among cities experiencing levels of pollution higher than the toxic levels measured in Beijing, according to a Greenpeace analysis of NASA satellite data.

Last year was India’s smoggiest ever, said the research. Concentrations of small airborne pollutants from the burning of coal, petrol and waste reached a record high of 153 microgrammes per cubic meter in Delhi, compared to 92.4 in Beijing.

Levels in both cities still far exceed the ‘safe’ level of 25 recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO), posing acute short and long-term health threats.

“The poor, living near busy roads or industrial sites, are disproportionately affected,” warned Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director of WHO South-East Asian Region.

Analysis: Pollution levels in Delhi high despite odd-even traffic rule
Toxic Delhi: Earth’s most polluted city has no plan to cut emissions

India’s dramatically rising pollution levels during 2000-2012 have been associated with a growing consumption of fossil fuels.

Coal and oil usage have increased 110% and 70% respectively in the twelve-year period. The Greenpeace report lists power generation, transport, industry and agriculture as major polluters.

Delhi has the worst reported air quality in the world and 13 of the top 20 most polluted cities are in India.

High levels of air pollution caused approximately 1,800 deaths daily in India in 2003 and 2.7 million deaths worldwide in 2012, according to WHO.

Poor air quality also increases the risk of lung cancer and chronic respiratory and heart diseases, Lauri Myllyvirta, co-author of the Greenpeace Clean Air Action Plan told Climate Home.

“A particular concern in India, due to relatively high levels of child mortality, is the fact that air pollution increases the risk of low birth weight babies and respiratory infections in children,” he said.

Delhi recently took action to curb pollution by imposing an odd-even traffic rule to reduce the number of private vehicles on the road following ‘toxic’ levels of PM2.5 particles.

Myllyvirta believes that addressing transport, industry and other major polluting sectors is key to solving the city’s pollution problem.

“Delhi does have the potential to drive wider national and regional improvements”, he said, but emphasised that a great extent of North India’s population are often exposed to pollution levels even worse than Delhi.

Outdoor pollution is a major problem for 15 out of 17 Indian cities, said the report. Air quality is so poor that pollution measures exceed national standards by 70% in the majority of monitoring stations across the country.

“It is absolutely key to tackle the problem on the regional and national level”, added Myllyvirta.

The post India air pollution is now worse than China appeared first on Climate Home News.

Shijiazhuang Railway Station in Hebei Province (Pic: Sjors Provoost/Flickr)

By Zhang Chun in Beijing

The Party Secretary and governor of Hebei province Zhang Qingwei had an unrelaxing start to 2015, a landmark year in China’s war on pollution, after being called in for a ‘chat’ with officials tasked with delivering improvements in China’s air quality.

Fast forward to the start of this year, and the progress in reducing pollution in one of China’s most heavily-industrialised provinces is laid out in official data.

Air pollution levels in Hebei have fallen 28.7% between 2013 and 2015, making Hebei one of China’s four fastest improving provinces (the others being Tianjin, Sichuan and Shaanxi).

The progress is widely viewed to be the result of a successful joint campaign between the provinces and central government, albeit from a very high baseline of air pollution levels.

And Hebei will clearly need to do much more before the province can be said to have turned things around in terms of its poor air quality, some of which affects neighbouring Beijing.

No monkeying around: China state control threatens climate agenda

An incident reported by Chinese media last year illustrates the pressures that the province’s leaders are under.

Then, Zhang lost his temper with a local official who had been reading from a bland statement on pollution that had patently been written by a subordinate.

Zhang apparently yelled: “In March I gave you three things to do, just tell me straight if you’ve done them or not!”

There is cause for frustration. Hebei is one of the most polluted provinces in China. For two years running, seven of Hebei’s cities have featured in a top ten list of the country’s most polluted cities.

But despite the dismal rankings, activists and experts say there is cause for optimism.

Barclays: China key to closing global emissions gap

Tao Guangyuan, executive director of the Sino-German Renewable Energy Cooperation Centre, said Hebei is working harder on air pollution than any other province in China.

The environmental expert believes that the central authority has selected Hebei as a model for other heavily polluted provinces to follow in their transition to cleaner technologies.

To support this, the government has bolstered Hebei’s environmental credentials. Hebei’s Environmental Protection Inspection Group is now more powerful than the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s (MEP) regional centres, of which there are six nationally.

Members of the inspection group include current and former vice MEP ministers and staff from the Central Disciplinary Commission, a watchdog-type agency that enforces internal Party rules; along with members from the Central Organisation Department, which has influence over hiring and firing.

This body’s purpose is to keep up the pressure through investigations of environmental breaches and mete out tough punishments.

In the words of Hebei Party secretary Zhao Kezhi: “The ineffectiveness, neglect of duty, misconduct, or misuse of powers during environmental protection work will be punished harshly in accordance with laws and Party rules.”

Report: Coal, steel sectors to suffer as China pollution drive accelerates

A coalition of Chinese and foreign air pollution experts was formed in August 2014 to advise on the province’s air quality.

Initially, Hebei had followed Beijing’s model of monitoring vehicle pollution and dust levels. The new coalition, called the Committee for the Prevention of Atmospheric Pollution, calculated that these methods alone would only cut Hebei’s pollution by 14% between 2012 and 2017, way short of the province’s 25% target.

In response, the committee suggested galvanising different governmental departments. The environmental, economic, housing and public security authorities [which oversee vehicles] all joined forces to share data.

“There was a lot of information we didn’t have at first, but we were able to identify 800 sources of pollution, accounting for 550,000 tonnes of pollutants,” said He, dean of Tsinghua University’s School of the Environment adding: “Deal [effectively] with all of those and you’ve hit the target.”

The results came in. Hebei’s average PM2.5 level for 2015 fell 28.7% compared with 2013, although, it must be said, from a very high baseline.

A landmark decision to partner with the German Energy Agency in October 2014 laid the path of improvements in pollution. Later this year, an energy efficiency plan is expected to yield further improvements.

Germany’s experience

The plan borrows from the experience of Germany’s coal mining and industrial area, the Ruhr, which spent around a decade in tackling pollution by increasing energy efficiency, using clean power, and adopting cleaner coal-burning technology.

The plan involves a combination of changes at a highly-localised level, such as switching households to natural gas, or boiler upgrades for winter heating.

Broader structural changes to whole industries in north-western Germany’s industrial cluster have also served a as a model. In Hebei, waste heat from steel refineries can be used in farming and aquaculture.

Hebei’s anti-pollution measures will also target greenhouse gas emissions as China attempts to deliver on a commitment to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 or before.

Economic growth

To meet its targets, Hebei must overcome huge obstacles. Huge investment will be needed at a time when Hebei’s provincial GDP growth is slowing. For the first three quarters of 2015 it was 6.5%, ranking fifth lowest in China.

Hebei is a manufacturing centre for steel, concrete and building materials – all highly polluting – and is also home to a belt of industry circling Beijing.

Most parts of China is faced with the challenge of restructuring the economy while reducing particulate and carbon emissions – and Hebei is no exception. Although in Hebei, it is more difficult because of the pre-existing in industrial base.

Zhang Xiaoli, a professor at Beijing Normal University, points out that the development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region (known as Jing-Jin-Ji) has long suffered from a lack of coordination between authorities that have widely differing priorities.

Zhang says the restructuring will mean long-term benefits for Hebei, but there will be unavoidable pain in the short term, in the form of lower GDP growth and job losses.

Job prospects

A report produced by the MEP and Nanjing University on cost of dealing with air pollution between 2013 and 2017 found that shutting down out-of-date industry in the Jing-Jin-Ji region alone will result in GDP falling by over 280 billion yuan (US$42 billion) and the loss of almost 190,000 jobs.

Over those five years the area is expected to see GDP grow by 3.6 billion yuan, far lower than the Pearl or Yangtze Deltas, while the overall number of jobs, many of which will be in the capital’s services industry, will rise by a little more than 40,000.

Energy-hungry and polluting industries in Hebei – the steel sector in particular – are already shutting down, often leaving wages unpaid.

According to He Kebin, the lion’s share of funding for tackling smog in the Jing-Jin-Ji has gone to Hebei, but the problem will not be solved overnight.

Hao Jiming, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has calculated it will be about 2025 before the region catches up with the Pearl River Delta in terms of air quality.

Data from the Guangdong Environmental Monitoring Centre shows that in 2015 average PM2.5 levels for the PRD were 34 micrograms per cubic meter.

This article first appeared at China Dialogue

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Severe air pollution in Henan province, China in 2014 (Flickr/ V.T. Polywoda)

By Megan Darby

The UN health body is calling for energy efficiency and clean energy to tackle air pollution in a “landmark resolution” agreed this week.

Some 3.7 million people die each year from exposure to outdoor air pollution and 4.3 million from indoor pollution, the World Health Organization estimates.

Coal power stations and diesel vehicles are major sources of harmful fumes, as well as being significant drivers of climate change.

The resolution noted: “Promoting energy efficiency and expanding the use of clean and renewable energy can have co-benefits for health and sustainable development.”

Making low carbon energy affordable will “maximize these opportunities,” it added.

Put forward by 14 countries including the US, Germany, Ukraine, Colombia and Zambia, it urged WHO member states to take action.

Air pollution triggers a range of health problems, from asthma to cancer (Pic: Flickr/KristyFaith)

Environmental health campaigners welcomed the initiative.

Génon Jensen, head of the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), said it was a “significant milestone” to prevent breathing problems, heart attacks, strokes and cancer.

As countries aim for a global climate deal in Paris this December, it acts as “a powerful stepping stone for greater health engagement,” she added.

The threat of air pollution resonates in rich and poor countries alike.

In India, it is shaving up to three years of the lifespan of half the population. New Delhi residents are increasingly concerned about toxic smog in the world’s most polluted city.

As Narendra Modi’s government looks to coal to bring power to 300 million people without access, the risks are increasing.

Under the Dome – Investigating China’s smog (English subtitles)

The Chinese government, meanwhile, is curbing coal use in cities in an effort to bring the problem under control.

It faces intense pressure to clean up the skies. Air pollution documentary Under the Dome scored more than 100 million hits before it was banned.

In the European Union, air quality standards are on the whole higher, but still fall short of WHO guidelines.

Member states are required to limit concentrations of fine particulates – PM2.5 – to an annual average of 25 micrograms a cubic metre. The WHO recommends 10 µg/m3.

This pollutant alone is thought to shorten Europeans’ life expectancy by eight months.

A WHO study last month found air pollution costs the EU US$1.6 trillion a year in death and disease, or a tenth of GDP.

Report: Tougher climate pledges ‘could save millions of lives’

The Climate and Health Alliance warned this “invisible killer” is on the rise in Australia, too.

“Australians are facing declining air quality in our cities and urban areas and increasingly in rural settings,” said CAHA chief Liz Hanna.

“Stronger air quality standards are needed to protect the health of all Australians.”

HEAL “regrets” the resolution stopped short of binding measures, says Jensen.

But it is “the kick -off for greater engagement and resources for health ministers and health authorities to tackle air pollution”.

The post WHO calls for clean energy to tackle air pollution appeared first on Climate Home News.

London must modernise its transport, say campaigners (Pic: Flickr/Metro Centric)

By Alex Pashley

Britain’s highest court today told the Government to draw up plans to tackle illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide. 

In a victory for environmental lawyers ClientEarth following a five-year legal campaign, ministers must deliver proposals by the end of the year.

The government was ruled to be in breach of safeguards set under European law of the harmful pollutant in 16 UK regions and cities.

Nitrogen dioxide is produced by emissions from diesel engines.

Court justices were unanimous in the decision, saying: “The new Government, whatever its political complexion, should be left in no doubt as to the need for immediate action to address this issue.”

ClientEarth called the ruling “historic” and said it would save thousands of lives a year.

“We brought our case because we have a right to breathe clean air and today the Supreme Court has upheld that right,” ClientEarth lawyer Alan Andrews said.

The Government has failed to bring under control levels of the pollutant for nearly 25 years, projecting it wouldn’t meet EU-set levels by 2030. In 2011 it won a grace period valid on regulations brought in 2005.

But ClientEarth today quashed the government’s statement that its actions since 2010 had been effective.

“It is very appropriate that the Supreme Court has ruled in the dying days of the government to hold it to account,” Simon Birkett, director of clean air in London said.

“The first job of the next government will be to produce a proper air quality plan and take immediate action to meet legal limits for nitrogen dioxide, currently breached up to three fold in central London,” he said. Britain elects a new government on 7 May.

Diesel drive

Air pollution causes 29,000 premature deaths a year and costs the UK economy £9-19 billion, according to government figures.

Nitrogen dioxide is linked to respiratory problems, heart attacks and strokes.

The number of diesel cars surged to 9.4 million in 2012, a third of all licensed cars, according to official statistics. The cars, whose exhausts the World Health Organization labels as “carcinogenic” made up just 7.4% of all cars in 1994.

ClientEarth called for a “comprehensive plan” that considered “low emissions zones, congestion charging and other economic incentives”. Andrews called for London to modernise its transport fleet in an interview with RTCC earlier this month.

In London, one of Europe’s most polluted capital cities, a poll showed yesterday nearly seven out of ten Londoners thought political leaders weren’t doing enough to tackle the hazardous fumes in the capital according.

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London at air pollution “level 5” (Pic: Flickr/David Holt)

By Alex Pashley

Air pollution caused 600,000 premature deaths in 2010 and cost the equivalent of a tenth of the European Union’s 2013 gross domestic product, a World Health Organization study said today.

The research, presented at a health and environment summit in Israel, for the first time ever puts an economic value on its impact on European public health.

“The evidence we have provides decision-makers across the whole of government with a compelling reason to act,” said Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO Regional Director for Europe in a statement.

“If different sectors come together on this, we not only save more lives but also achieve results that are worth astounding amounts of money, ” Jakab added.

Zsuzsanna Jakab: Curbing the health effects of air pollution pays dividends http://t.co/6MRDnIQ0b4 #EHP2015

— WHO/Europe (@WHO_Europe) April 28, 2015

Must-read @WHO_Europe | #AirPollution costs EU economies US$1.6 trillion a year in diseases & deaths http://t.co/APhyckqci2 #RightToCleanAir

— Clean Air in London (@CleanAirLondon) April 28, 2015

Over 90% of citizens in the region’s 53 countries are exposed to levels of outdoor fine particulate matter above WHO’s air quality guidelines.

These accounted for 482,000 early deaths in 2012 from strokes and heart and respiratory diseases. In the same year, indoor air pollution resulted in an extra 117,200 premature deaths, with mortality rates five times higher in low-and middle-income countries than richer states.

The economic value of deaths and disease relates to the amount countries are willing to pay to avoid these deaths and diseases through healthcare.

“Reducing air pollution has become a top political priority,” said Christian Friis Bach at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

Tomorrow in the United Kingdom, where the WHO put the economic cost at $81 billion or 3.7% of GDP, a supreme court will rule on a case brought against the government over the UK missing deadlines to slash nitrogen dioxide rates.

Many of the air pollutants that are damaging to health come from the same sources as greenhouse gas emissions: power plants, heavy industry and road transport.

Increasingly, experts are working together to highlight the joint benefits of action. with the WHO holding its first ever global conference on health and climate change last summer.

US president Barack Obama has played up the health benefits of his curbs on coal power emissions, in a bid to overcome partisan divides on climate change.

And tackling harmful smog is a key motivation for China’s policies to clean up industry and roll out renewable energy.

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Air pollution obscures London’s cityscape in April 2014 (David Holt / Flickr)

By Alex Pashley

An environmental law group will take the British government to court today over breaching safe limits of nitrogen dioxide in 16 UK cities.

ClientEarth take their fight to the country’s Supreme Court after the European Court of Justice ruled the UK must have a plan to meet air quality standards in the shortest time possible.

After nearly 25 years of missed targets, the Government is not set to hit reduction targets of the harmful pollutant – emitted mainly by diesel exhausts – until 2030.

“There’s no question that the government is in breach of its legal duty, the only one that remains is what the court should do about it,” Alan Andrews, a ClientEarth lawyer told RTCC.

“We’re confident we have a strong case.”

ClientEarth’s legal battle saw applications for judicial review in the High Court and Court of Appeal rejected, but the Supreme Court offered a lifeline.

Air pollution causes 29,000 premature deaths a year and costs the UK economy £9-19 billion, according to government figures.

Nitrogen dioxide is linked to causing respiratory problems, heart attacks and strokes.

The British Health Foundation urged the Supreme Court today to force the government to “speed up drastically” its plans to improve air quality.

Report: Tougher climate pledges ‘could save millions of lives’ 

In 2011, the government obtained a grace period on EU limits which came into force in 2005.

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) declined to comment to RTCC as the court case was ongoing.

The number of diesel cars surged to 9.4 million in 2012, a third of all licensed cars, according to official statistics. The cars, whose exhausts the World Health Organization labels as ‘carcinogenic’ made up just 7.4% of all cars in 1994.

London is one of Europe’s most polluted capitals with the high levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulates PM2.5 and PM10.

Walking along Oxford Street, Britain’s top shopping street, contained “three to five times over the legal limit”, Andrews said.

He called for “major investment” in upgrading the city’s transport fleet, which would make fewer sick and ease pressure on Britain’s national health service, as well as boost manufacturing of greener vehicles.

“Winning would be a landmark victory establishing the legal right to breath clean air,” Andrews added.

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India is struggling to hit its growth targets and keep air pollution to manageable levels (Pic: IBN)

By Ed King

Over 100,000 deaths linked to air pollution will be avoided every year as a result of new climate change policies implemented in China, the US and European Union, researchers say.

A study published by the New Climate Institute finds billions of dollars earmarked for fossil fuel imports will be saved and more than one million jobs in the renewable energy created by 2030.

The findings are based on the EU’s 2030 climate strategy, and on US-China climate plans published last year, which scientists estimate put the world on course for 3.1C of warming.

Negotiators aim to ratchet up action over the coming years to limit temperature rise to 2C above pre-industrial levels.

In that scenario, the researchers say over a million lives will be saved every year, and two million jobs created.

“Recognition of both the achieved and potential co-benefits may increase the willingness of decision makers and influential stakeholders to embark on more ambition climate change mitigation strategies,” says the report.

The research does not include the avoided costs of extreme weather events linked to climate change, which a recent UN study estimated were already above $200 billion a year.

Bargaining chip

Lead author Niklas Hoehne told RTCC the data demonstrated the wide range of returns carbon cutting plans could offer governments ahead of a proposed UN climate deal later this year.

“These co-benefits are on the table but maybe not as prominent as they could be – and they should be placed in the mix when discussing future climate action,” he said.

Countries have been asked to submit their “intended nationally determined contributions” to the UN by 1 October this year.

Some, such as the EU, Switzerland, Mexico and Norway have already done so, while others like China, Brazil and India and expected to offer more details later this year.

Pollution problem

In 2012, one in eight people died as a result of poor air quality, the World Health Organisation reported last year, with 4.3 million deaths a result of fumes from cooking or heating.

Air pollution is a politically toxic issue in China and other emerging economies like India, where huge demand for electricity and a surge in the use of road vehicles has left cities choking.

A recent film called ‘Under the Dome’, chronicling appalling smogs in Beijing and Shanghai, was a brief internet hit in China before the government blocked its distribution.

By 2030, the number of Chinese deaths linked to exposure to small particles of pollution could hit 3 million, the study says.

“If China would strengthen its [target] to meet a 2C compatible trajectory, a further 1.1 million premature deaths could be spared each year by 2030.”

Tougher climate targets in the US would save 20,000 lives a year by 2030 and 40,000 in Europe, said the researchers.

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Pic: US Mission Geneva/Flickr

By Sophie Yeo

The World Bank is backing efforts to equip 100 million households with clean cooking facilities by 2020 in an attempt to reduce indoor air pollution in developing countries.

The group announced it would invest $60 million into a partnership with the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves at a summit in New York today.

The use of inefficient cookstoves and traditional biomass fuels affects 3.1 billion globally. Every year in developing countries, the air pollution this causes kills 4.3 million people.

“We will focus our efforts and resources on the tough issues: improved technology, better affordability, supply chain development, and consumer behavior,” said Anita George, a senior director at the World Bank.

The effort will also support UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon’s push to provide sustainable energy for all by 2030.

As well as causing health problems, dirty cookstoves can prove expensive as their users are forced to pay for inefficient fuels or lose time to collecting it themselves.

VIDEO: Could biofuel stoves cut carbon and fuel costs in Nigeria?
REPORT: Nepal PM reveals plans to go smoke-free by 2017

But weak markets and distribution systems for new and improved stoves and fuels have held back attempts to address the problem, as well as reluctant to adopt new practices by the people who would use them, said the World Bank in a statement.

Initially, the groups will work in 12 countries, including Bangladesh, China, Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, India, Nigeria and Uganda.

But as well as working on a national level to improve policies and standards, work will also take place to improve the supply chain by providing technical support for manufacturers and distributors.

There will also be a push to educate end users of the benefits of clean cooking.

“Our work together will support the growth of entrepreneurs in the sector, scale up the availability of cleaner cookstoves and fuels, and further the development of standards and testing procedures to provide more certainty to donors, investors, and consumers alike,” said Radha Muthiah, head of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.

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Pic: Nissan

By Sophie Yeo 

It may come as a surprise to Londoners to learn that not all walls are actually black.

Air pollution is the problem that a “reverse graffiti” artist is seeking to highlight in a new London mural, created by washing away the dirt ingrained in the city’s walls.

London has the worst air pollution in the UK, causing around 3,000 people to die prematurely every year. Recently, the air on Oxford Street was found to have the highest recorded levels of pollutant NOx on the planet. The primary culprit is London traffic, which spews particulate matter over the city’s busiest streets, turning them black.

Today, street artist Moose unveiled a new 10-metre long mural in Waterloo, depicting London’s famous landmarks including Buckingham Palace, the Shard, Battersea Power Station and the London Eye.

The work was commissioned by Nissan to highlight the benefit of electric cars like its LEAF model in creating cleaner cities. And the image was drawn with a pressure washer powered by the LEAF’s car battery.

“I’ve been using reverse graffiti for fifteen years now, in fact I named it,” said Moose.

“My whole ethos is about highlighting the amount of pollution we endure daily using a very positive harmless method that never fails to ask questions about what we accept and what we shouldn’t accept in our environment.”

Pic: Nissan

Pic: Nissan

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Pic: Nicolò Lazzati/Flickr

By Sophie Yeo

Beijing will ban coal use in its six main regions by the end of 2020, according to the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau.

The move is the latest of a series of efforts to combat the capital city’s air pollution. The cancer-causing smog which shrouds Beijing has stimulated efforts to reduce coal consumption, which has the knock on effect of tackling climate change.

The official Xinhua news agency said on Monday that Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chaoyang, Haidian, Fengtai and Shijingshan districts will stop using coal and its related products, and will close their coal fired power plants and other coal facilities.

It reported that the Bureau would use clean energy, including electricity and natural gas, to supply residents in heating, cooking and other activities.

Coal burning causes the PM2.5 particles which are the most harmful aspect of air pollution. According to the UN’s World Health Organisation, air pollution killed seven million people globally in 2012.

Xinhua said that official Chinese statistics show that coal use provided a quarter of Beijing’s energy consumption in 2012, which is expected to shrink to less than 10% by 2017.

Indications from state officials that China is ready to put a cap on its carbon emissions show that the country is serious about tackling its fossil fuel addiction.

Thanks to its booming economy and its growing demand for energy, China now consumes 49% of all the coal produced in the world. This has reduced poverty, but at the same time had a drastically negative impact on the country’s natural environment.

Diplomats from China, Brazil, India, and South Africa, who make up the BASIC negotiating bloc at the UN, meet this week in Delhi to discuss their climate change positions.

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Source: Flickr/MaX Fulcher

By Sophie Yeo

Efforts to tackle air pollution are expected to intensify, with the UN given new powers to combat the problem.

The UN’s Environment Programme (UNEP) was mandated to step up its work on air quality by the UN Environment Assembly at a meeting last week in Nairobi.

This means the international body now can support governments by helping to remove obstacles to tackling air pollution, as well as providing data and reporting on progress.

“Many States already have laws to cut air pollution, but stronger enforcement and compliance efforts are needed to make the laws work,” said Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development,  who attended the Assembly last week.

Delegates also agreed to encourage governments to set new standards and policies to reduce emissions, and to manage the impacts that poor air quality has on health, the economy and sustainable development.

Air pollution is a toxic problem, particularly in industry-heavy countries that burn a lot of coal, as small particles are emitted into the atmosphere. According the World Health Organisation, seven million people were killed by air pollution in 2012.

The Assembly, attended by 160 countries, was the first time UNEP has hosted an event on this scale. Attendees included UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, President of Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta, and UN development chief Helen Clark.

Climate change

Both air pollution and climate change have similar root causes, including vehicles and coal-fired power plants. These emit the carbon dioxide that drives global warming, as well as the small particles that hang in the air, causing respiratory problems, heart disease and strokes when breathed in by humans.

The UN Environment Assembly also agreed to urgently address climate change. The UN hopes to reach a treaty to cut emissions in Paris in 2015.

An informal dinner on the sidelines of the Assembly brought together the presidencies of the Warsaw, Lima and Paris conferences, along with 70 ministers, to discuss how to build the political momentum to sign this deal, which remains controversial.

“We are in a time in which we are building the world that we wish, we want and we love, but we can’t do it alone,” said Manuel Pulgar Vidal, environment minister of Peru, and president of this year’s climate summit in Lima.

Sustainable development

Ministers also discussed the UN’s forthcoming Sustainable Development Goals, which will frame international efforts to address social and economic inequality from 2015. UNEP reinforced that the environment should be an integral part of these goals, which have yet to be finalised.

Observers have expressed concern that climate may not receive a dedicated goal in the final draft.

Scientists say that climate change is a threat to the world’s future development, causing resource scarcity and extreme weather events.

A report released on Friday by UNEP and the financial sector examined how to reduce the risks of natural disasters, including cyclones, earthquakes and floods.

Spearheaded by insurance companies, including Australia Group, Munich Re, Swiss Re and AXA Group, the report assesses methods of disaster risk reduction on how much they cost and their potential to save lives.

“There is a lot we as insurers can bring to the table,” said Leona Murphy of Insurance Australia Group.

“We work with communities to help them recover from disasters, so we have a deep understanding of the risks they face at a local level, and we know what works when it comes to reducing the impact of disasters.”

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Pic: Thanh Mai Bui Duy/Flickr

By Sophie Yeo

Dangerous air pollution afflicts 7 out of 10 of the world’s cities, according to data released today by the UN.

Of the 1,600 cities around the globe monitored by the World Health Organisation (WHO), air quality was only considered ‘safe’ in 30%.

As larger, more populous cities have worse air quality, this means only 12% of the world’s urban population are breathing safe air, putting almost 90% of the urban world at risk of respiratory and heart problems, strokes and other diseases

Around half of the urban population being monitored are exposed to levels of air pollution at least 2.5 times higher than that deemed ‘safe’ by the WHO, according to the data.

“Too many urban centres today are so enveloped in dirty air that their skylines are invisible,” said Dr Flavia Bustreo, WHO Assistant Director-General for Family, Children and Women’s Health.

“Not surprisingly, this air is dangerous to breathe. So a growing number of cities and communities worldwide are striving to better meet the needs of their residents – in particular children and the elderly.”

Worse

Limitations in air pollution data collection in places such as Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean means that some of the worst polluted cities are not included in today’s statistics. The reality is likely to be worse than what appears on paper, says Sophie Bonjour from WHO, who helped to compile the database.

In high income countries, 816 cities reported on PM2.5 levels, while in low- and middle-income countries, only 70 cities registered this information. PM2.5 are the fine particles that are most hazardous to human health.

“A lot of cities that are not represented have a worse air quality,” Bonjour told RTCC. “We have to bear in mind we have much more data on cities from high income countries, of course, so a lot of cities we don’t have. If we had the data, I guess this number would be much lower than 30%.”

And in most cities air pollution is getting worse, the data shows, despite some efforts to combat the problem. They attribute this to continued reliance on fossil fuels, as well as transport, inefficient buildings, and the use of biomass for cooking and heating.

Bejing, for instance, regularly registers levels of air pollution considered ‘hazardous’ to human health, while a haze which descended on Paris in March caused the government to impose a partial transport ban.

Last month, the WHO said that air pollution was now the world’s biggest environmental threat, as it killed some seven million people in 2012.

Clean cities

In response to the data, the WHO points out that action to tackle air quality not only improves the lives of those in the cities, but can also contribute to economic development.

Measures such as effective public transport ad cycle-friendly streets can serve as a catalyst for local economic development. Some major cities in Latin America prove this point, says the WHO, where air quality has reached ‘safe’ levels.

“Effective policies and strategies are well understood, but they need to be implemented at sufficient scale,” said Dr Maria Neira, WHO Director for Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health.

“Cities such as Copenhagen and Bogotà, for example, have improved air quality by promoting ‘active transport’ and prioritizing dedicated networks of urban public transport, walking and cycling.”

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Air pollution in the Salt Lake Valley (Pic: Rick Bolin/Flickr)

By Gerard Wynn

Ozone pollution will rise across almost the entire United States if global average surface temperatures continue to rise, scientists concluded in a study published this week.

The study, published in a journal of the American Geophysical Union, showed that Americans faced the risk of a 70% increase in unhealthy summertime ozone levels by 2050.

“The impact of predicted changes in regional climate and globally enhanced ozone is estimated to increase surface ozone over most of the US,” concluded the scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the  Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Tougher air pollution standards which reduced particulate and other emissions from cars could counteract such an increase, they said.

“This study confirms the key role of emission control strategies in future air quality projections and demonstrates the need for considering degradation of air quality with future climate change in emission policy making,” the report said.

Ozone

Breathing ozone can cause inflammation in the deep lung (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and decreases in lung function according to a large literature as reported in a review reported in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, in 2008.

A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study, published in the Lancet in 2012, found that ozone pollution was responsible for about 200,000 premature deaths annually.

Ozone is produced from chemical reactions between nitrogen oxides (NOX) and volatile organic compounds such as methane and carbon monoxide. Such compounds are produced from burning fossil fuels in vehicles, and also from natural sources including plants and from wild fires.

Studies have shown that higher temperatures stimulate ozone production.

In addition, in a hotter future climate with more extreme heat waves and drought conditions may increase the frequency of wildfires, also stimulating ozone production, and increase production of ozone precursors by plants.

The new study is unique for analyzing the relationship between ozone and climate change at a very high resolution, and for using a particularly powerful new supercomputer to simulate pollution levels hour by hour over several decades.

The impact of climate change on ozone levels is complicated by the increased destruction of ozone at higher humidity levels, as also expected under climate change.

In general, scientists have suggested that while average, background levels of ozone may fall in response to climate change, local levels particularly in polluted cities would rise as a result of the combined effect of higher temperatures and the production of ozone precursors from vehicles.

A recent report by the UN climate panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, concluded that climate change would cause a net increase in ozone in cities.

“Observational and modelling evidence indicates that, all else being equal, locally higher surface temperatures in polluted regions will trigger regional feedbacks in chemistry and local emissions that will increase peak levels of ozone,” the IPCC report said.

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Air pollution is linked to cancer, heart disease and stroke deaths (Pic: Tim Montgomerie/Twitter)

By Gerard Wynn

Rising temperatures will worsen air quality through a combination of more ozone in cities, bigger wild fires and worse pollen outbreaks, according to a major UN climate report published next week.

The report follows the World Health Organisation (WHO) finding this week that air pollution is the world’s biggest environmental health risk, killing 7 million people in 2012, or one in eight deaths.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will report on climate impacts ranging from damaged crops to rising seas.

The report, leaked online, is the second in a three-part publication which the IPCC produces every five to six years on the threats posed by global warming.

Pollen, smoke and ozone are all are expected to increase.

Each is a major health risk and all exacerbate asthma, which already affects some 235 million people worldwide, according to the WHO.

Deteriorating air quality will most affect the elderly, children, people with chronic ill-health, and expectant mothers.

The health risks from air pollution point to an extra benefit from tackling climate change, because many greenhouse gases are also pollutants.

The IPCC estimated that manmade air pollutants which are also greenhouse gases collectively reduced global life expectancy by 190 million years annually, also called disability-adjusted life years, resulting in lost economic value of $1.9 trillion, or 2.7 percent of the global economy.

That represents the health benefit of entirely eliminating greenhouse gases which are also air pollutants, before accounting at all for the benefit of avoided climate change.

Ozone

Ozone is produced by the reaction of sunlight with nitrogen oxides (NOX) and volatile organic carbon emitted from vehicles burning fossil fuels.

Breathing ozone can contribute to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is responsible for about a tenth of all deaths from outdoor air pollution.

A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study, published in the Lancet in 2012, found that ozone pollution was already responsible for about 200,000 premature deaths annually.

Higher temperatures both speed up the chemical reactions which produce ozone, and lead to more emissions of volatile organic compounds from natural sources.

Where people depend on air conditioning, heat waves can also lead to more electricity generation and production of NOX from fossil fuel-fired power plants.

Higher temperatures can also accelerate the destruction of ozone. But at the local level in polluted cities, higher temperatures are expected to increase ozone production and so exacerbate health risks.

“Observational and modelling evidence indicates that, all else being equal, locally higher surface temperatures in polluted regions will trigger regional feedbacks in chemistry and local emissions that will increase peak levels of ozone,” the IPCC will say next week.

A study in a report published in 2007 in the journal Climatic Change – and quoted by the IPCC – estimated that all but one of 50 U.S. cities would see increases in ozone concentrations, as a result of climate change.

Wild fires

Climate change will likely lead to more frequent wild fires, as a result of higher temperatures and more frequent extreme heat waves and drought.

The most dangerous type of smoke is particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter smaller than 10 micrometers (PM10 and PM2.5).

Health impacts from wild fires include heart and lung diseases.

A study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives in 2012 calculated that exposure to smoke from wild fires was already responsible for 339,000 premature deaths annually, with a range of 260,000 to 600,000.

Studies have recorded exceptional levels of smoke in cities near wild fires.

Moscow experienced an exceptional heat wave in 2010, the probability of which had tripled as a result of climate change, according to research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Southerly winds carried smoke and haze from fire-afflicted southern provinces directly into Russia’s capital city from August 1-10, reported a satellite study published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

“The highest 24 hour pollution levels recorded in Moscow during these conditions were between 430 and 900 μg/m3 PM10 most days, but occasionally reached 1500 μg/m3.,” said the latest IPCC report, compared with the 20 μg per cubic metre WHO guideline.

South East Asia has suffered exceptional forest fires, associated with extreme droughts, and notably in 1997.

“It is estimated that more than two million hectares of forests burned in the Indonesian islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra,” reported the World Meteorological Organisation in 2012, in its climate and health atlas, as quoted in next week’s IPCC report.

“In Indonesia, among the 12,360,000 people exposed to the haze, it was estimated that there were over 1,800,000 cases of bronchial asthma, bronchitis and acute respiratory infection.

Health surveillance in Singapore from August to November 1997 showed a 30% increase in hospital outpatient attendance for haze-related conditions.

Pollen

Pollen is released by flowering grasses, trees and weeds (in particular ragweed), and is significantly associated with allergic rhinitis, or hay fever.

Allergic rhinitis alone was responsible for direct medical costs of $6.2 billion annually in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, reporting in 2008, affecting approximately 40 million people, including 16 million children.

Climate change will likely increase pollen production both through higher levels of carbon dioxide, which stimulates pollen production by flowering plants, and warming, which will lengthen flowering seasons, the EPA said, as quoted by the IPCC.

“Experimental results have consistently demonstrated that doubling carbon dioxide levels from current to projected future levels (700 ppm) would result in a 60 to 90% increase in ragweed pollen production,” the EPA report said.

Smoke and ozone can worsen the allergic impact of pollen, according to the EPA.

“The literature demonstrates that the inflammatory effects of ozone, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide allow for easier penetration of pollen allergens into the airways; that air pollutants can increase the release of antigens in pollen grains that lead to allergic responses; and that pollutants can also absorb pollen grains and, thus, prolong their retention in the body.”

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Source: Flickr/Nicolò Lazzati

By Sophie Yeo

Air pollution killed seven million people in 2012, confirming that it is now the world’s largest environmental health risk.

The figures, released today by the World Health Organisation, are more than double previous estimates. It means that in 2012, air pollution was responsible for one in eight total global deaths.

“The risks from air pollution are now far greater than previously thought or understood, particularly for heart disease and strokes,” says Dr Maria Neira, Director of the Department for Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health at the WHO.

“Few risks have a greater impact on global health today than air pollution; the evidence signals the need for concerted action to clean up the air we all breathe.”

Along with strokes and heart disease, respiratory infections and lung cancer are also killing people as a result of air pollution.

Indoor, outdoor

Air pollution can occur both inside and outside. About 2.9 billion people live in home where wood, coal or biomass is used as the primary cooking fuel. This produces tiny soot particles that get into the lungs, particularly in poorly ventilated houses.

The WHO estimates that this was linked to 4.3 million deaths in 2012, with woman and young children particularly badly affected because they spend more time around the stove.

“Poor women and children pay a heavy price from indoor air pollution since they spend more time at home breathing in smoke and soot from leaky coal and wood cook stoves,” says Dr Flavia Bustreo, who deals with family, women’s and children’s health at the WHO.

Outside, air pollution is caused mainly by burning coal and by transport. The WHO estimates that this caused 3.7 million deaths in 2012. Many people are exposed to both indoor and outdoor air pollution.

The worst affected areas are low- and middle-income countries in South East Asia and the Western Pacific, according to the WHO, where a total of 3.3 million deaths were linked to indoor air pollution, and a further 2.6 million related to outdoor air pollution.

Policies to combat air pollution could be good for the economy as well as the inhabitants of any given region, says Dr Carlos Dora, Coordinator for Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health at the WHO.

“In most cases, healthier strategies will also be more economical in the long term due to health-care cost savings as well as climate gains,” he said.

“WHO and health sectors have a unique role in translating scientific evidence on air pollution into policies that can deliver impact and improvements that will save lives.”

Beijing, Paris

Air pollution made the headlines last week when the City of Lights was momentarily snuffed out by a blanket of smog.

Paris’s air quality index took readings of 185 – a level which is considered dangerous to human health. This prompted a driving ban on around half of the city’s vehicles, as well as an outpouring of photographs of the Eiffel Tower disappearing behind a wall of haze.

In Beijing, air pollution is a longer term and more consistent burden on the city, with the air quality index regularly taking readings of over 300, at which the air is considered “hazardous”.

At 3pm yesterday, authorities in Beijing issued a ‘yellow’ warning, which indicates severe pollution for one day or heavy pollution for three consecutive days.

In February, the city issued an ‘orange’ warning for the first time since the four-tiered system was put in place last year, as part of ongoing efforts to reduce Beijing’s notorious smog.

On Friday, China’s Premier Li Keqiang said that the government will control the country’s total energy consumption, promote energy efficiency and encourage the development of clean energy industries in order to tackle climate change.

As well as causing air quality to deteriorate, burning coal emits carbon dioxide, which is causing the planet to warm.

“In terms of energy supply, coal power will not be the only solution for us,” Li said, according to state media, at a meeting of China’s cabinet.

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Choking air pollution levels are forcing Chinese authorities to take tougher action against heavy industry (Pic: Mad House Photography)

By Gerard Wynn

Growth in China’s carbon emissions is slowing sharply, under pressure from climate and pollution targets and slower economic expansion, data on coal consumption show.

In China, coal consumption and carbon emissions are very closely correlated because coal is such a dominant part of the country’s energy mix.

As a result, analysis of coal trends provides an insight into the outlook for carbon emissions by the world’s biggest polluter.

The latest data suggest growth in coal consumption has already started to slow dramatically.

China’s coal consumption grew just 2.6% last year, to 3.61 billion tonnes, according to the China National Coal Association in January.

That compared with coal consumption growth of 6.4% in 2012, according to BP data, and a compound average annual growth rate in coal consumption of 8.8% from 2000-2012.

A halving of growth in coal consumption implies a halving in carbon emissions growth.

As the world largest carbon emitter, that is good news for a global response to climate change.

There are two pauses for optimism.

First, while it is good news that carbon emissions growth is slowing, it is another matter for China to halt growth and start to cut emissions. Second, even as China does pull back, other emerging economies and notably India are likely to take its place.

Trend

China’s coal consumption has surged in the last decade, in step with the country’s economic growth (see Figure 1).

The mutual dependence with GDP growth helps explain why it has been for China to wean off coal, even as the damage from air pollution on human health has been documented.

Coal is important as a cheap, indigenous energy resource. While coal consumption growth is now slowing, it will remain the bedrock of the country’s energy economy.

There are twin pressures on China’s coal consumption: the threat of global climate change, and increasingly public criticism of the nation’s air quality.

Regarding climate change, China five years ago set an intensity target to cut carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 40-45% by 2020 compared with 2005.

In 2005, China’s carbon intensity was just over 1 kilogramme of CO2 per $ of GDP, according to World Bank GDP data.

Of course, China sets lots of targets under successive five-year plans, and misses lots of them. But the carbon intensity may be different, as an international pledge made by previous Premier Wen Jiabao, at a United Nations climate conference in 2009.

Most recently, the country has drifted off the target (see Figure 2). To get back on track, China will have to cut carbon emissions more urgently.

Regarding air quality, cutting pollution is now an urgent policy priority tied to maintaining social order.

Indicating how seriously authorities are taking the issue, this January China announced a new plan to cut coal’s share of energy use to 65% in 2014, down from 65.7% in 2013 and 67% in 2012, in a bid to improve air quality in major cities.

That represents an acceleration of previous plans, which envisioned coal coming down to 65% of total energy consumption by 2015.

What it means for coal consumption depends on economic growth.

“With total energy consumption growth targeted at 3.2%, coal consumption would rise by just 1.6% this year (2014),” said Bank of America Merrill Lynch in a research note last Thursday.

“But if GDP growth holds up above 7% (which is our assumption), coal demand growth of about 3% is more likely.”

That would still be more than a halving of annual growth compared with 2012.

Outlook

Both emerging data for coal consumption and the emissions and pollution targets suggest that China’s coal consumption has turned a corner and is on a long-term, downward trajectory.

The question is how fast it might fall, and what that means for the country’s carbon emissions.

In its latest World Energy Outlook, published last November, the International Energy Agency pointed out that a slowdown in 2012 was partly due to heavy rains and a resulting surge in hydropower, but it also saw the beginnings of a systemic shift, as the country invested in efficiency and shifted from coal to gas, nuclear and renewables.

“In 2012, the rate of coal demand growth in China was one of the lowest over the past decade: the drivers of change may already be at work,” it said.

The IEA forecast that China’s coal consumption growth would slow for the rest of this decade and peak in 2025.

Coal use will remain central to China’s economy, not only in power generation but industry including steel and chemicals, however, meaning achieving coal consumption and carbon emissions may not start falling until 2030.

And where China pulls back India and emerging south-east Asian countries such as Vietnam will step in.

“In India, coal use continues to grow briskly throughout the projection period (2012-2035), in line with the country’s strong electricity demand growth,” the IEA projected.

“India displaces the United States as the world’s second-largest coal market before 2025. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries see a tripling of coal use; their collective consumption is nearly double that of the European Union in 2035.”

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Tropical deforestation for a pulpwood plantation development in northern Riau (Source: Flickr/Wakx)

By Sophie Yeo

Fires in Indonesia are destroying large areas of forest on land owned by lumber and palm oil companies, casting further attention on western companies that buy commodities from the affected regions. 

The fires, which have been burning since late February, have emitted a blanket of smog, which has triggered respiratory problems in more than 30,000 people, according to local reports.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesperson at Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency, said that causes of pneumonia, asthma, and eye and skin irritation had also increased, with air quality reaching dangerous levels in the northern regions of the country.

The region, which forms the nucleus of Indonesia’s enormous palm oil industry, has sought help from the central government, saying they lack the resources to deal with the haze, which is affecting at least seven of the 12 districts in the region.

Apart from the air pollution that these fires cause, they also damage the climate by destroying large areas of diverse forest, releasing the carbon stored inside into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

Deforestation accounts for at least 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions and fewer trees mean less effective soakage or ‘sinks’ of CO2.

Slash and burn

Indonesia is the world’s largest supplier of palm oil. Plantations cover about 8 million hectares of land and form a key part of the country’s economy.

Much of the demand for palm oil comes from large international corporations, who use the produce to make anything from fast food to shampoo.

But weak law enforcement  and alleged corruption has made the industry very difficult to regulate, resulting in few prosecutions.

Police in Riau say they have detained almost thirty people suspected of starting the latest fires, although none of them have been connected to plantation companies.

Research from the World Resources Institute shows 52% of the fires are in lands owned by logging, palm oil and pulpwood plantations, suggesting that some companies are still using illegal ‘slash and burn’ farming as a cheap method to clear the land.

“It is a problem that Indonesia has not managed to overcome because of lack of control over the action of palm oil companies. There is a governance issue, and it is an ecological risk in itself,” said Mochamad Indrawan, an advisor with the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

Indonesia and neighbouring countries of Malaysia and Singapore faced a similar crisis in June last year.

Government action

The recent huge fires have prompted the government to promise tougher action.

After a 12-year delay, the Indonesian Parliament agreed to ratify a cross-boundary treaty between south east Asian nations (ASEAN) to combat the haze, which suffers as a whole from air pollution regardless of where the fires are burning.

In Indonesia, approximately three quarters of certified palm oil is exported, either as cooking oil or in unprocessed form, according to figures from the World Bank.

A “score card” of 30 of the world’s major companies released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) shows that many corporations have not committed to buying sustainable palm oil that doesn’t cause deforestation, with fast food companies scoring particularly badly.

Burger King, Domino’s and Starbucks have no commitments in place to buying environmentally sustainable palm oil, while Nestle, Unilever and L’Oreal were viewed to have some of the best ethical policies in place.

“Many of the companies scored are iconic to American culture…But what most Americans don’t know is that these products contain palm oil,” said Calen May-Tobin, lead analyst for UCS’s Tropical Forest and Climate Initiative.

“These corporations should live up to their ‘wholesome’ branding by demanding sustainable palm oil. To do so would save tropical forests, rich with biodiversity, and help limit the severity of climate change.”

The post Palm oil producers blamed as smog chokes Indonesia appeared first on Climate Home News.

Source: Kevin Dooley

By Sophie Yeo

Companies responsible for Beijing’s heavy air pollution will face harsher punishment as from 1 March, including unlimited fines for repeat offenders.

Beijing’s new Air Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations will mean stricter punishments for those who break the rules designed to quash the hazardous levels of pollution that have beset China’s capital city.

The Beijing Municipal People’s Congress voted on the legislation on 22 January last year.

Under these new rules, polluting companies that refuse to reduce or suspend their production during bouts of severe pollution will be fined up to 500,000 yuan (US$ 80,000), up from 100,000 yuan, state media reports. Punishments will increase for repeat offenders, with no cap on the amount that they can be fined.

Zhong Chonglei, an official at the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, said: “The new regulations increase the fines for industrial violators to up to 500-thousand yuan. Companies found breaking the law again and again will be punished even more.

“The new rules also include compulsory measures which will allow authorities to terminate illegal activities immediately, including illegal emissions.”

Crazy bad

The new regulation kicks in as Beijing starts to recover its health from the thick blanket of smog that has choked the city and its residents for almost a week, leading authorities to issue its first ever “orange” warning, signalling a serious health crisis.

In Beijing, and in other cities across China, air quality has worsened over the past decade as the government pursues a model of “growth at all costs”. China currently produces almost half the world’s total volume of coal, according to the IEA.

Anger at the government for their failure to curb the problem has reached fever pitch over the past week, as Beijing residents struggled in a smog that was literally “off the chart” bad.

The US State Department, which records the air quality, considers PM2.5 particle levels higher than 500 as “beyond index”, or higher than their measurement scale will record. The usually automated Twitter account briefly described the pollution as “crazy bad” – a tweet which was widely circulated before being deleted.

Outrage

State media, normally reserved in its criticism of the government, has spoken out against their failure to curb the air pollution.

Writing today in state owned China Daily, deputy editor Chen Weihua complained that, while officials are arrested for “corruption and sex scandals”, no one has so far lost their job for allowing the rampant pollution that is consuming China’s cities.

“So far, which companies had to declare bankruptcy due to the heavy penalties imposed for the serious pollution they caused? How many business owners were put behind bars for the damage they inflicted on the environment?” he writes.

“The laws may have been there for years or decades, yet they are not strictly enforced, or not enforced at all. In fact, such lax enforcement has invited more rampant violations in the past decades.”

He added that China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection has little power and “no accountability”.

A man from Shijiazhuang, the capital of the northern province of Hebei, has become the first person in China to sue the government for failing to curb air pollution, another state-run newspaper, the Yanzhao Metropolis Daily, reported on Tuesday.

Policies by the Chinese government have to the growth of Chinese coal consumption to slow, according to figures released by the China National Coal Association in January. They report that in 2013 growth slowed to 2.6% year on year.

Policies include the implementation of seven regional emissions trading schemes, including in Shanghai and Beijing. This is intended to precede a national carbon market. China’s finance minister has also said that he would support a carbon tax.

“The government is not neglecting these problems,” says Chris Nielsen, executive director of the Harvard China Project. “It is frantic about them…But the problems are very hard.”

The post Beijing polluters to face unlimited fines under new regulations appeared first on Climate Home News.

Source: Kevin Dooley

By Sophie Yeo

The head of the China’s leading climate change research centre has likened China’s “unbearable” air pollution to a smoker at increasing risk of lung cancer.

“China’s pollution is at an unbearable stage,” said Li Junfeng, director general of the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation at a conference in Beijing yesterday.

According to Bloomberg he added: “It’s like a smoker who needs to quit smoking at once otherwise he will risk getting lung cancer.”

Air pollution is Beijing is so bad that it is considered a serious risk to human health. In November last year, an eight-year-old girl became the youngest child ever in China to be diagnosed with lung cancer.

His comments came as Beijing faces some of its worst ever pollution, causing an ‘orange’ pollution alert to be issued in the city. The alert was issued on Friday, and remains in place today, with a further three days of hazardous pollution expected across the city.

It is the first time that such a warning has been issued since the four-tier system was introduced last year as part of the effort to help Beijing tackle its notoriously bad air quality.

The pollution means young people and the elderly have been advised to stay indoors, while residents are being urged to leave their cars at home. Only under a ‘red’ alert will the city authorities pull cars from the roads.

The Chinese capital has been swathed in a fog of PM2.5 since Friday. These particles are less than 2.5microns in diameter and are a serious threat to human health. The US Environmental Protection Agency deems any reading over 300 to be hazardous. Over the past couple of days, levels have frequently exceeded 400.

Breathing muck. This is smog over Beijing today. Hazardous to breathe. Mask recommended if you go outside. pic.twitter.com/CMYUr1ipDa

— Damian Grammaticas (@dngbbc) February 24, 2014

Air quality problems have caused outrage among Beijing residents, where the problem is at its most acute. Thick pollution led to an unusually critical tone in the state-owned China Daily, which is normally wary of attacking the government.

“Their inaction in the face of the heaviest air pollution in a month flies in the face of their own promises and their own credibility,” it said in an editorial.

The pollution is largely the result of vehicles and coal, which emits carbon dioxide alongside the PM2.5 particles, causing the planet to warm. The deterioration of China’s air quality has occurred alongside the boom in the country’s economy, as the government pursued a model of growth at all costs.

Readings by Beijing Air were almost constantly ‘hazardous’ over the weekend

But as anger simmers among the Chinese public, the government is undertaking measures to tackle air pollution.

According to Reuters, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection said on Sunday that twelve teams of inspectors would head to Beijing along with Tianjin and the Hebei province to examine how authorities are responding to the crisis.

China will need to figure out how to reduce its coal dependence if it is really committed to cleaner air. Currently, the country produces 45.3% of the world’s total coal.

Production is still growing, although according to figures released in January by the China National Coal Association, the rate of consumption slowed in 2013.

A report released last week by WWF said that China had the potential to use renewable energy for 80% of its power generation by mid-century, and could do so more cheaply than relying on coal.

This would rely on high carbon prices through emissions trading schemes and rigorous standards of energy efficiency, said the group.

The post China’s air pollution compared to a smoker at ‘risk of lung cancer’ appeared first on Climate Home News.

Source: Flickr/SJ Photography

By Sophie Yeo

Firework sales in Beijing slumped by 38% over the Chinese New Year, amid growing concerns about the city’s air pollution.

Statistics released by Beijing local government reveal that residents bought 19,500,000 boxes of fireworks between 30 January and 4 February during the Spring Festival celebrations, which ended yesterday – down by 37.7% from the previous year, Beijing’s municipal public security bureau said in a statement.

The custom of setting off fireworks and firecrackers during the Lunar New Year period is a centuries-old tradition in China, supposed to ward off evil spirits and bring good luck.

But a year of unprecedented levels of air pollution in Beijing has dampened enthusiasm for the city’s spectacular displays.

Toxic smog, and in particular the fine PM2.5 particles that pose the biggest danger to human health, regularly reach unhealthy levels in Beijing,  have prompted residents to wear facemasks and schools to close.

Changhua Wu, China director at the Climate Group, told RTCC this has led to a debate about the New Year fireworks.

“Fireworks have a long history, and it has been the tradition as part of the celebration of the Chinese Lunar Calendar New Year.

“But because of the air pollution, not everyone agrees with it. There’s an emerging consensus in society that we need to take into consideration the air quality issue because people are worried about the health impact.”

Fireworks release dust particles and other toxic compounds that cause breathing difficulties, compounding the problem of toxic pollution in China, which is caused mainly by the burning of coal for power generation, steel-making and district heating.

Anger over the problem of air pollution is driving efforts within China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, of which they are the world’s largest emitter. The country has been experimenting with carbon trading schemes in various cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, which they hope will form the basis of a nationwide programme in 2015.

China’s economic growth over the past decade has been accompanied by booming emissions, which will be relevant when states come to sign off a global climate change treaty in 2015. A recent study found that China now has the second highest historical emissions after the United States.

Government efforts

Prior to the celebrations, municipal governments across China ran campaigns to encourage people to cut their use of fireworks in order to keep air pollution to a minimum.

In Shanghai, the number of authorised firework sellers was reduced by 400, while the government in Beijing used the media to encourage citizens to bring a “breath of fresh air” to the city by curbing their use of fireworks.

No fireworks allowed at the Beijing cathedral pic.twitter.com/oIIjn9GoGW

— 李侑鋼 Andy Chaisiri (@HokutoAndy) February 3, 2014

But some objected to the measures, protesting that pollution from fireworks is a short term problem compared to the real root of China’s air pollution problems – coal.

“Air pollution is indeed a problem, but fireworks are just one contributing factor, and their use is a tradition worth preserving,” wrote blogger Mitch Blatt on website ChinaHush.

“Fireworks are a special cultural heritage of China and one that I, as a foreigner who enjoys experiencing Chinese culture, would hate to see disappear.”

The drop in sales appeared to have some effect.

Beijing air-monitoring stations showed that PM2.5 levels in the city spiked at 479 micrograms per cubic metre at 1am on 31 January, down from 1,486 in 2012’s New Year.

But at 479 micrograms, the air pollution was still considered “hazardous”, and is 20 times the level that the World Health Organisation considers safe.

01-31-2014 01:00; PM2.5; 469.0; 479; Hazardous (at 24-hour exposure at this level)

— BeijingAir (@BeijingAir) January 30, 2014

Alongside government efforts to cut firework-related pollution, the reduction is result of a “perspective change” from Beijing residents, said Wu, who believes the conversation around air pollution and fireworks has grown due to the use of social media.

“People are more worried about air quality and their health. I have a 13-year-old boy and we didn’t buy any fireworks at all this year. It’s a choice, consumer choice, basically, how much you do.”

She added that environmentally friendly fireworks, although more expensive, could help to further reduce the problem, and that their use could be scaled up in coming years to “maintain the spirit of the holiday celebration but in the meantime without damaging the air quality.”

The post Beijing firework sales slump 38% as air pollution concerns grow appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Flickr/Friends of Europe)

By John McGarrity

China’s premier said the government should use electric cars and buses in order to help improve pollution levels in the country’s major cities.

The use of coal in power stations, homes and factories is often cited as the main culprit for China’s dire air quality, but the explosive growth in car use and urban transport has also contributed to pollution that has become a major concern in fast-expanding megacities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin.

In a statement posted Monday on the central government’s website, Premier Li Keqiang publicly backed the use of electric vehicles on a visit to electronics and auto company BYD.

“New energy vehicles, especially buses, can help to improve urban pollution and noise problems in cities; everyone should use it. The government should play an exemplary role. In the face of growing environmental pollution, we have to face these problems,” the statement said.

As part of a wider crackdown against the indulgent lifestyles of some Communist party officials, central government has been encouraging cadres to buy domestic brands for official use rather than pricier foreign models.

Poor infrastructure

Very few of the millions of cars bought by party officials are likely to have been electric, as  just 40,000 such vehicles were in use in China as a whole by  March 2013, 80% of which were in public transportation, according to government figures.

Around 18 million new petrol or diesel cars were sold in China last year. This means use of electric cars will have to ramp up rapidly if China is to meet its goal of having 5 million electric vehicles in use by the end of the decade.

Analysts say a roll-out of charging stations is needed before low-carbon motoring can make a big impact.

According to the UK-based Climate Group, which campaigns for a shift to a low carbon economy, moves by central government should mean that more electric vehicles are seen on Chinese streets, but only if the right infrastructure is in place.

“Building up the new infrastructure to accommodate electric vehicles, charging remains at the piloting stages. To address those barriers, sharing and learning from other countries’ experiences becomes critical,”  said Changhua Wu, a director with the Climate Group.

China last September introduced subsidies for electric cars, but provided few details on how these could be powered up on the move in China’s vast and traffic-clogged major cities.

The slow progress so far of electric cars in the world’s most-populous country doesn’t appear to deterred fast-growing US auto firm Tesla, which expects sales in China to match those in the US by 2015 and could possibly build a plant there, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The firm also plans to fund a network of charging stations in larger Chinese cities.

But the green credentials of electric cars in China are compromised by the country’s reliance on coal-fired power, which supplies almost 70% of the country’s electricity grid.

That means that a massive growth of electric cars in China would mean more demand for power, making it more difficult to cut air pollution, the very problem cited as behind the move towards rechargeable cars.

The post China PM calls for national roll-out of electric vehicles appeared first on Climate Home News.

Smog blankets Los Angeles in 2006 (Source: Flickr/Ben Amstutz)

By Sophie Yeo

Air pollution in China is blowing over the Pacific Ocean and settling on the west coast of America, causing at least one extra day of dangerous smog in Los Angeles every year.

This is a case of getting what you pay for, according to a new study led by researchers from Peking University in Beijing.

They have calculated that approximately one quarter of the sulphate pollutants that cross into the US are tied to products created within China but destined for American consumers.

“We’ve outsourced our manufacturing and much of our pollution, but some of it is blowing back across the Pacific to haunt us,” said co-author Steve Davis from the University of California Irvine.

“Given the complaints about how Chinese pollution is corrupting other countries’ air, this paper shows that there may be plenty of blame to go around.”

One of the drivers of the economic boom in China over the past ten years has been the demand for its exports. Between 2000 and 2007, the volume of Chinese exports grew by 390%.

At the same time, discontent over hazardous levels of air pollution in cities such as Beijing has been growing. Today, the governor of Hebei, the province surrounding Beijing, threatened to fire any officials who add new steel capacity, and thus increase the amount of coal being burnt.

Outsourcing emissions

According to the report, published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, goods exported to the US were responsible for 36% of human-caused sulphur dioxide, 22% of carbon monoxide and 17% of black carbon emissions in 2006.

These pollutants mix together to form the unhealthy smog and soot which shrouds China’s industrial cities. Around 21% can be specifically linked to exports destined for America, say the researchers.

Most of America’s air pollution is produced domestically from cars and refineries, but the research found that as much as a quarter of the sulphate pollution on the US west coast is tied to Chinese exports.

As the US increasingly outsourced its manufacturing to China, sulphate pollution increased in 2006 in the western states, but decreased in the east. This reflects the “competing effect between enhanced transport of Chinese pollution and reduced US emissions,” write the authors.

“When you buy a product at Wal-Mart it has to be manufactured somewhere,” said Davis. “The product doesn’t contain the pollution, but creating it caused the pollution.”

Global deal

The findings could have an impact upon attempts to strike a deal to reduce global emissions, as it is important that emissions are counted in a fair and accurate way.

The researchers point out that it may be necessary for countries to take responsibility for the emissions produced outside their own borders if they go towards producing items for domestic consumption.

They point out that US emissions of air pollutants would have been 6-19% higher in 2006 if the figures included what was emitted through the creation of goods produced in China for American consumption.

They write: “Sustaining the current trading system while minimizing trans-boundary air pollution—and other environmental impacts— will likely require international agreements informed by consumption-based accounting of emissions of air pollutants”.

The post Chinese air pollution blankets US west coast appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Greenpeace)

1 – Arctic 30 will not return home for Christmas
The Russian authorities have told Greenpeace activists that they will be forced to stay in St Petersburg for Christmas and possibly well beyond, defying the ruling of an international court which ordered that they should be allowed to go home immediately. Russia’s powerful Investigative Committee has written to one of the 30 – Anne Mie Jensen from Denmark – indicating that they are not free to leave the country.

2 – Australian carbon price helped emissions tumble
The introduction of a price of carbon resulted in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions falling by 0.1% in the first 12 months. The biggest source of emissions, electricity generation, posted a 6.4% drop in CO2e to 181.3 million tonnes, mostly due to falling demand. However, said Thompson Reuters, emissions rose in all other sectors including mining activities and transport.

3 – Carbon capture critical to maintaining 2°C target
A new study has revealed that the future availability of bioenergy and CCS technologies will be one of the only ways to maintain the current temperature target. Scientists combined 18 different global energy-economy models in order to assess the role of technology when it comes to reaching different climate targets.

4 – New Zealand publishes UN Biennial Report
New Zealand’s climate change minister Tim Groser has welcomed the publishing of the country’s Sixth National Communication on Climate Change and the associated First Biennial Report, announced the Scoop. The Biennial Report is a new requirement under the UNFCCC, which includes additional information on New Zealand’s new unconditional emissions reduction target to 2020, including any accounting assumptions that are relevant to the attainment of that target, and more information on financial, technological and capacity building support to developing countries.

5 – Beijing air pollution could stop New Year parties
Firework and firecracker celebrations will be banned in Beijing if serious air pollution is forecast for the upcoming Lunar New Year, a festival that features massive use of pyrotechnics, according to China.org. Residents will receive text messages if orange or red alerts for air pollution are issued during the holiday, which begins on 31 January.

The post Russia refuses to allow Greenpeace 30 home for Christmas appeared first on Climate Home News.

Source: Flickr / Yale Rosen

By Sophie Yeo

Air pollution causes cancer, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced today, making it the most widespread environmental carcinogen.

The WHO reclassified outdoor air pollution, already known to cause respiratory and heart diseases, as carcinogenic to humans.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the specialised cancer agency of the WHO, drew the conclusion from an independent review of over 1000 scientific papers. They found sufficient evidence to suggest that exposure to outdoor air pollution causes lung cancer, as well as a positive association with an increased risk of bladder cancer.

Although experts have evaluated many of the individual components of air pollution in the past, including diesel engine exhaust, solvents, metals and dusts, this is the first time that air pollution as a whole has been classified as a cause of cancer.

Although different regions have different levels of exposure, the results can be applied globally.

“Our task was to evaluate the air everyone breathes rather than focus on specific air pollutants,” explains Dr Dana Loomis of the IARC.

“The results from the reviewed studies point in the same direction: the risk of developing lung cancer is significantly increased in people exposed to air pollution.”

Rising risks

Over recent years, the exposure of people in some parts of the world to air pollution has increased significantly, particularly in densely population rapidly industrialising countries. In 2010, air pollution caused 223,000 deaths through lung cancer.

Earlier this week the European Environment Agency (EEA) reported that 90% of residents in European cities are exposed to pollutants that the WHO deems as harmful.

“The air we breathe has become polluted with a mixture of cancer-causing substances,” says Dr Kurt Straif, also of the IARC.

“We now know that outdoor air pollution is not only a major risk to health in general, but also a leading environmental cause of cancer deaths.”

The post WHO: air pollution causes cancer appeared first on Climate Home News.

The days of heavy smogs may be history, but tiny particles can damage health (Pic: EEA)

Air pollution poses a serious risk to the health and surrounding environment of European citizens, a new report warns.

The Air Quality in Europe assessment by the European Environment Agency (EEA) reveals 90% of residents in European cities are exposed to pollutants that the World Health Organisation deems as harmful.

An analysis of all 33 member states revealed levels of particulate matter (PM) are especially high in Poland, Italy, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Balkan regions.

Cities in Latvia, Sweden and the United Kingdom also exceeded the daily limit value for PM10 particles.

PM10 and PM2.5 are two common forms of air pollution particles, often created by fossil fuels and small enough to be inhaled by humans.

Overall, PM levels in the EU fell between 2002 and 2011, and EEA executive director Hans Bruyninckx says the lack of thick smogs covering European cities indicates progress is being made.

But he added member states need to adopt more ambitious legislation to ensure PM levels and other forms of air pollution continue to drop.

“Air pollution is causing damage to human health and ecosystems. Large parts of the population do not live in a healthy environment, according to current standards,” he said.

Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik, who is working on a new Air Policy Review, said surveys indicate a growing desire for tougher action from the EU.

“A large majority of citizens understand well the impact of air quality on health and are asking public authorities to take action at EU, national and local levels,” he said.

The report emphasizes the links between air pollution and climate change, citing the effect Short-Lived Climate Pollutants like ozone and black carbon (soot) play in warming the planet.

But it warns that policymakers need to manage decarbonisation carefully, or risk a potential increase in air pollution due to a change in fuel sources.

“For example, substituting biomass burning for fossil fuel combustion is often considered a switch to a climate neutral fuel by the climate convention,” it says.

“However, increased biomass burning leads to increased emissions of PM and other carcinogenic substances.”

This study comes a day after a coalition of EU states led by Germany blocked legislation designed to ensure new cars emit lower levels of carbon dioxide.

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