Also discussed here: Air Pollution Worsening Worldwide: Cut Emissions Further, Experts Urge(ScienceDaily, Jul. 31, 2012)
Today we review a paper that looks at the state of air quality globally for the next 40 years, using an index that represents the five major pollutants and a global circulation model to produce scenarios into the future if we continue with “business as usual” policies. These scenarios show that countries and large cities with the worst widespread pollution (in Indo-Asia, the Middle East and North Africa) will not surprisingly deteriorate. The rest of the world’s state of pollution will worsen on average to what we see today in East Asia with the negative health results and enhanced anthropogenic climate change that this implies. Clearly improved atmospheric environmental policy is called for in almost all countries.
Key Quotes:
“The analysis now published is the first to include all five major air pollutants know to negatively impact human health: PM2.5, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, ozone, and carbon monoxide”
“Air quality is a major issue in megacities worldwide (i.e. population centres with more than 10 million inhabitants), which are increasing in size and number…Megacities are strong localized pollution sources, .. their effects can extend over large distances of more than 1000 km downwind”
”At present, urban outdoor air pollution causes 1.3 million estimated deaths per year worldwide”
“eastern China, northern India, the Middle East, and North Africa are projected to have the world's poorest air quality in the future”
“it is projected that air quality for the global average citizen in 2050 would be almost comparable to that for the average citizen in East Asia in the year 2005”
"Strong actions and further effective legislation are essential to avoid the drastic deterioration of air quality, which can have severe effects on human health,"
"We show that further legislation to control and reduce human-made emissions is needed, in particular for eastern China and northern India, to avoid hot-spots of elevated air pollution"
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