ARTICLE | Best Air Pollution Control Practices
Successful measures to control the Silent Killer
Air pollution in cities is one of the major environmental issues that the world has been encountering for years now. With growing industrialisation and population explosion, the challenge of controlling air pollution has become more difficult. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), seven million people die every year due to health issues caused by polluted air Shrila Pokhariyal Editorial Assistant
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oor air quality affects all age groups, all regions, settings, and socioeconomic groups. However there are geographic differences in vulnerability to air pollution. Some regions enjoy clean air because of less or no industrialisation and less population density, whereas citizens of regions like Asia, Africa, or Middle East, have pollutant levels that are much higher than those considered safe by WHO’s air quality guidelines. Air pollution is an unavoidable aspect of rapid urbanisation. In recent years, many studies have been conducted which suggest that the air quality will further deteriorate with damaging impact especially on health, agriculture, and economy. Since urban air pollution depends on a wide variety of reasons,
32 December 2020 | www.urbanupdate.in
the government plays a vital role in addressing the issue of air pollution and finding ways to reduce it. Team Urban Update tries to document some of the most efficient initiatives taken by governments across the world to control air pollution in their cities.
NORTH AMERICA
In spite of the improving air quality in New York City (NYC) for decades now, air pollution remains a major concern. NYC has a long history of implementing programs to reduce the pollution level, but pollutants like PM2.5 from cars, power plants, forest fires and wood burning, damages the quality of air. In 2007, the levels of PM2.5 and Ozone crossed the standards set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. In response to this, NYC started PlaNYC 2030, which was its first long-term sustainability plan. The plan aimed to make NYC’s air quality the cleanest among large cities in the US, when measured in terms of PM2.5. The initiative brought 25 civic agencies
together to work towards the goal of cleaner and greener New York. The government also launched other policies to reduce air pollution such as requiring all oil boilers to switch to cleaner fuels by year 2030, passing a law in 2010 requiring heating oil to contain 2 per cent biodiesel by October 2012. A voluntary “Clean Heat Program” was also launched which encouraged the adoption of cleaner fuels by providing financial and technical assistance to building owners. As a result of these policies and initiatives by the government, an air quality report published in 2013 showed that sulphur oxide (SO2) concentration in the air was down by 69 per cent while the concentration of PM2.5 was down by 35 per cent. Air pollution in Toronto is mainly due to traffic, and industrial, residential and commercial sources. It was recorded that 1,700 premature deaths and 6,000 hospitalisations per year in Toronto were a result of bad quality of air. To improve the quality of air, Government of Ontario released a unique policy. It was to exclude coal from the state’s electricity generation in a cost-effective way. Slowly but efficiently all coal plants stopped using coal by 2014. Over the years, use of coal to generate electricity was switched over to increased generation from natural gas, deployment of renewables and expansion of nuclear generation. By 2014, the levels of PM10, SO2 and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions due to electricity generated by coal declined by 90 per cent, 91 per cent and 65 per cent, respectively.
SOUTH AMERICA
Bogota, the capital of Colombia, witnessed a serious pollution episode in February 2019, due to adverse atmospheric conditions that raised serious concerns about air quality in the capital. The city government had to declare an emergency situation, limiting traffic temporarily, mainly in majorly affected zones. Heavy duty diesel-powered trucks were permanently restricted during rush hours. It took four days to lower the levels of PM10 pollutants. Diesel-powered public buses and heavy transport vehicles are the main