Thick, toxic smog over Indian capital as temperatures, wind speed drop

Posted on November 12, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd

New Delhi’s air quality plummeted again on Friday, and a thick haze of toxic smog hung over India’s capital due to a drop in temperature and wind speed, and a spike in the burning of crop waste in surrounding farmlands.

The haze reduced visibility and the Air Quality Index (AQI) hit 461 on a scale of 500, according to the federal pollution control board. This level of pollution means the air will affect healthy people and seriously impact those with existing diseases.

The concentration of poisonous PM2.5 particulate matter averaged 329 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The government prescribes a “safe” PM2.5 reading at 60 micrograms per cubic meter of air over a period of 24 hours.

PM2.5 is small enough to travel deep into the lungs, enter the bloodstream and can cause severe respiratory diseases, including lung cancer.

“This is becoming a nightmare,” said Gufran Beig, founder project director of air quality and weather monitor SAFAR that falls under the Ministry of Earth Science.

“Fire counts are in the range of 3,000-5,000 and not declining,” Beig told Reuters, referring to crop stubble fires in the regions around the capital.

He said current severe conditions may ease by Saturday, but air quality would remain “very poor” until Nov. 17.

Air quality might worsen if farm fires continued, as the SAFAR model forecasts calm wind conditions, Beig said.

India’s efforts to reduce crop-waste burning, a major source of air pollution during winter, by spending billions of rupees over the past four years have done little to avert a sharp deterioration in air quality.

Delhi, often ranked the world’s most polluted capital, faces extremely bad air in winter due to the crop stubble burning, emissions from transport, coal-fired plants outside the city and other industrial emissions, open garbage burning and dust.

Residents of Delhi endured this year’s worst air on Nov. 5, a day after revellers burnt firecrackers during the Diwali festival, as AQI levels surged to 463 on a scale of 500.

Vehicular emissions contributed more than half of Delhi’s particulate pollution between October 24-November 8, the Centre for Science and Environment think tank said in its report published on Thursday.

Thick, toxic smog over Indian capital as temperatures, wind speed drop | Reuters
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European cities could avoid an extra 114,000 premature deaths every year by meeting the new WHO air quality guidelines

Posted on November 11, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd
Air Pollution Maximum Levels; Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal)

An update of the ISGlobal Ranking of Cities shows that the new air pollution recommendations could save up to 58,000 additional deaths for PM2.5 and 56,000 for NO2 compared to the previous recommendations

A health impact assessment from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the ”la Caixa” Foundation, has concluded that European cities could avoid an extra 114,000 premature deaths every year if they met the new air quality guidelines presented by the World Health Organization (WHO) in September 2021 compared to the previous guidelines.

These estimates are an update of a study originally published in January 2021 in The Lancet Planetary Health, in which ISGlobal researchers showed that European cities could avoid up to 51,000 premature deaths per year by meeting WHO’s previous air quality guidelines, which had been in place since 2005. After the publication of the new guidelines, the research team performed a new assessment of the mortality burden attributable to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in the same 1,000 European cities included in the original study. The overall results have been published in a letter in The Lancet Planetary Health, while the specific results for each city have been published on the ISGlobal Ranking of Cities website.

The updated results show that achieving the new air quality guidelines for PM2.5 would result in a 113% increase in the number of deaths that could be avoided in European cities compared to the previous air quality guidelines from 2005, avoiding 109,188 premature deaths each year. For NO2, achieving the new recommended levels could prevent up to 57,030 premature deaths, 56,130 more than the 900 avoidable deaths estimated for the former NO2, recommended levels.

Going further, meeting the lowest levels of PM2.5 and NO2 observed in any city, could prevent 125,000 and 79,000 annual premature deaths, respectively.

“Even though there is no safe exposure threshold below which air pollution becomes innocuous, these new results show how the new WHO global air quality guidelines offer a much better framework for protecting human health and prevent a large number of deaths”, says ISGlobal researcher Sasha Khomenko, first author of the study.

The new data show that the number of avoidable deaths is much higher if the new WHO reference levels are adopted as targets. This effect is much more noticeable in the case of NO2. Among the cities with the highest mortality attributable to this pollutant, Madrid would go from avoiding 206 annual deaths if the old WHO recommendations were met to avoiding 1,966 using the new targets. Antwerp would go from 22 avoidable annual deaths to 254; Turin from 34 to 562; Paris from 185 to 2,135; Milan from 103 to 1,864 and Barcelona from 82 to 1,554.

Nearly 100% of the population above recommended levels

One statistic that shows how far European cities have to go to achieve clean air is the percentage of the population living in areas with concentrations of air pollutants higher than those recommended by the WHO. While under the previous WHO recommendations this percentage was 84% for PM2.5 and 9% for NO2, under the new recommendations these figures rise to 99.8% and 99.7% of the urban population, respectively. It should be noted, however, that the study was based on air pollution data for 2015.

“Since the current levels of air pollution in European cities are putting more than 100,000 lives at stake every year, the EU should align its legislation to match the WHO recommendations”, says Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, senior author of the study and Director of the Urban Planning, Environment and Health Initiative at ISGlobal. “In turn, local, regional and national governments should set the reduction of air pollution as a priority. We urgently need to reduce fossil fuel use, remove private cars and add more green spaces in our cities. This will not only reduce air pollution, but also contribute to climate action, which is one of our highest priorities for humankind”, he adds.

Current European directives stipulate an upper limit of 25 µg/m3 for annual mean PM2.5 and 40 µg/m3 for annual mean NO2. 

From November 11, 2021, updated avoidable mortality data using the new WHO recommendations for the 1,000 cities included in the study will be available at www.isglobalranking.org, where the recently published ranking of mortality associated with lack of access to green space is also available.

The update of the WHO’s air quality recommendations has not changed the position of the cities within the rankings of mortality associated with excess air pollution.

Top 10 cities with the highest mortality burden

The ten cities with the highest mortality burden due to PM2.5:

  1. Brescia (Italy)
  2. Bergamo (Italy)
  3. Karviná (Czech Republic)
  4. Vicenza (Italy)
  5. Silesian Metropolis (Poland)
  6. Ostrava (Czech Republic)
  7. Jastrzębie-Zdrój (Poland)
  8. Saronno (Italy)
  9. Rybnik (Poland)
  10. Havířov (Czech Republic)

The ten cities with the highest mortality burden due to NO2:

  1. Madrid (metropolitan area) (Spain)
  2. Antwerp (Belgium)
  3. Turin (Italy)
  4. Paris (metropolitan area) (France)
  5. Milan (metropolitan area) (Italy)
  6. Barcelona (metropolitan area) (Spain)
  7. Mollet del Vallès (Spain)
  8. Brussels (Belgium)
  9. Herne (Germany)
  10. Argenteuil-Bezons (France)

Top 10 cities with the lowest mortality burden

The ten cities with the lowest mortality burden attributable to PM2.5:

  1. Reykjavík (Iceland)
  2. Tromsø (Norway)
  3. Umeå (Sweden)
  4. Oulu (Finland)
  5. Jyväskylä (Finland)
  6. Uppsala (Sweden)
  7. Trondheim (Norway)
  8. Lahti (Finland)
  9. Örebro (Sweden)
  10. Tampere (Finland)

The ten cities with the lowest mortality burden attributable to NO2:

  1. Tromso (Norway)
  2. Umeå (Sweden)
  3. Oulu (Finland)
  4. Kristiansand (Norway)
  5. Pula (Croatia)
  6. Linköping (Sweden)
  7. Galway (Ireland)
  8. Jönköping (Sweden)
  9. Alytus (Lithuania)
  10. Trondheim (Norway)

Posted in Air Quality, Europe, France, Germany, Health Effects of Air Pollution, Italy, Medical Studies, Poland, Spain | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lockdown-driven air pollution cuts lower heart attack risk

Posted on November 10, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd

The number of people in the US suffering from heart attacks fell during the Covid-19 lockdowns, as air quality improved due to the reduction in the number of cars on the road, a study has found.

“Reducing pollution is not only helpful for the environment it may also have significant health benefits at the population level such as preventing heart attacks,” said lead author Sidney Aung, a fourth-year medical student at the University of California.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US and previous research has shown that environmental conditions such as air pollution can increase the risk of it occurring. In 2017, exposure to particulate air pollution was estimated to be associated with more than seven million premature deaths and the loss of 147 million healthy life-years globally.

Across the period analysed in this study (Jan 2019-April 2020), the number of severe heart attacks dropped substantially in association with declining ambient pollution levels.

According to an international analysis, IQ Air’s 2020 World Air Quality Report, global lockdown measures to slow the spread of Covid-19 resulted in healthier air around the world in 2020.

The report is based on the world’s largest database of ground-based air pollution measurements. Less air pollution was noted, particularly during the initial period of the lockdown when people were ordered to shelter in place, closing schools and businesses and reducing vehicle and airplane traffic.

Overall, 60,722 heart attacks occurred during the study. With each 10 µg/m3 (micrograms per cubic meter) drop in PM2.5 the number of heart attacks decreased by six per cent, translating to 374 fewer heart attacks per 10,000 person-years.

“This study highlights the importance of reducing air pollution, which could, in turn, prevent heart attacks,” Aung said. “We also hope our study may influence other investigators to pursue similar research to corroborate these results or to investigate other forms of air pollutants outside of particulate matter 2.5 that may have also declined during the pandemic lockdowns.”

Other studies have made similar links – for example a rapid drop in acute heart attacks occurred after public smoking bans reduced second-hand smoke exposure. However, it is unclear what connections exist between the pandemic lockdown and fewer heart attacks.

“It is also possible that other things were going on last year to reduce heart attack triggers – fewer exertional activities or other stressors, for example, that were also a result of the Covid lockdowns,” said Professor Joel D. Kaufman of the University of Washington. “If it turns out that we can meaningfully link a reduction in traffic-related air pollution during Covid lockdowns to a reduction in heart attacks, it points the way toward a major change that could help to reduce the burden of heart disease. We know how to reduce air pollution concentrations and have seen that it is possible.”

“This could reinforce the benefits of air pollution reduction as a cost-effective way to improve health,” he said. “It also means that reducing fossil fuel combustion, which we need to do anyway to combat climate change, may yield tremendous health benefits now, even if the climate benefits take years to accrue.”

In September, the WHO tightened its air quality guidelines in a bid to cut air pollution deaths.

Lockdown-driven air pollution cuts lower heart attack risk | E&T Magazine
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New study finds genes and air pollution multiply healthy people’s risk of depression

Posted on November 9, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd

A genetic predisposition for depression combined with exposure to high-particulate-matter air pollution greatly elevates the risk that healthy people will experience depression, according to a first-of-its-kind study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS) from neuroscientists at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development (LIBD), on the Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, and Peking University in Beijing, China. The study involved a global partnership synthesizing scientific data on air pollution, neuroimaging, brain gene expression, and additional data gathered from an international genetic consortium from more than 40 countries.

“The bottom line of this study is that air pollution doesn’t only impact climate change, it’s affecting how your brain works,” said Daniel R. Weinberger, M.D., Chief Executive Officer and Director of the Lieber Institute and a co-author of the study. “The effects on liability for depression may just be the tip of the iceberg where brain health is concerned. The major challenge in medicine today is a deeper understanding how genes and the environment interact with one another. This study sheds bright light on how this happens.”

“The key message in this study, which has not been shown before, is that air pollution is affecting important cognitive and emotional circuitry of the brain by changing the expression of genes that are conducive to depression,” said Hao Yang Tan, M.D., an investigator at the Lieber Institute, who led the research in collaboration with Peking University. “More people in high-pollution areas will become depressed because their genes and pollution in their environment exaggerate the individual effects of each.”

All people have some propensity for developing depression, the researchers say, but certain people have higher risk written into their genes. This predisposition does not mean that a person will develop depression, but it elevates a person’s risk above the average population. This study shows that depression is far more likely to develop in otherwise healthy humans who have these key genes and who live in environments with high levels of particulate-matter in the air.

“Our results are the first to show a direct, neurological link between air pollution and how the brain works in processing emotional and cognitive information and in risk for depression,” said Zhi Li, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Lieber Institute and lead author of the study. “What is most intriguing is that the two factors are linked in such a way that they have a multiplier effect on one’s risk of depression. That is, together, risk genes and bad air raise the risk of depression much more than either factor does in isolation.”

The brain circuits involved in the effects of genetic risk and air pollution control a wide range of important reasoning, problem-solving, and emotional functions, suggesting potentially widespread brain effects of air pollution.

The study recruited 352 healthy adults living in Beijing, a city with well-documented daily pollution levels. Participants first underwent genotyping from which the researchers calculated each person’s polygenic depression risk score—the mathematical likelihood that a person will suffer depression based on genes alone. The researchers then collected detailed information about each participant’s relative exposure to air pollution over a prior six-month period.

Next, the participants engaged in a series of simple cognitive tests while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) showing which parts of the brain were activated during the cognitive processing. While doing the tests, participants were also subjected to social stress (unexpected negative feedback about their performance), which affected how a widespread network of brain circuits operated during the tests. The researchers then showed that this brain network was disproportionately degraded by the combination of the genes for depression and the relative degree of exposure to air pollution.

To directly examine how genes for depression operated in the human brain, the researchers examined data from a gene atlas of postmortem human brain tissue. They then mapped the postmortem brain networks to the very same networks in living subjects to test whether those genes underwrite the effects of air pollution.

Using that sophisticated model, the team found that people who had high genetic risk for depression and high exposure to particulate matter had brain function predicted by a tighter integration with how genes for depression operated together. The researchers also found that a subset of genes driving these associations were implicated in inflammation, as well—a finding that could provide new pharmacological insights into mitigating the effects of air pollution on brain function and depression.

Tan said that this new understanding has implications for policymakers around the world. The role of air pollution on the brain is no longer a matter of conjecture.

“Armed with this knowledge, leaders and public health officials around the globe have ample evidence that additional air pollution controls will lead to improved cognitive function and lower rates of depression—particularly in densely populated urban areas where air pollution is highest, and stress from socioeconomic and racial inequities is greater,” Tan said. “Given the long-term costs of neuropsychiatric disorders, there is an urgent need for scientific and policy strategies to better identify and protect vulnerable individuals from the deleterious brain impacts of air pollution.”

New study finds genes and air pollution multiply healthy people’s risk of depression
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Ammonia from farms behind 60% of UK particulate air pollution – study

Posted on November 5, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd

Problem is causing £8bn a year in health damage but can be tackled cost-effectively, say scientists

Sixty per cent of the tiny particles polluting the air in the UK are from ammonia leaking from farms, according to research.

The ammonia is released from livestock manure and urine and the overuse of synthetic nitrogen fertilisers. The gas drifts into cities and reacts with other air pollutants to form tiny particulate matter, called PM2.5, which is the deadliest form of air pollution.

These particles cause £8bn a year in health damage in the UK, the scientists calculate. Globally, 39% of PM2.5 is derived from ammonia and results in $420bn (£320bn) of health damage, according to the study, published in the journal Science.

Ammonia can be trapped on farms by sealing manure pits or injecting the waste under fields, and by the more efficient use of fertiliser. Such action saves £23 in health damage for every £1 spent in the UK, say the researchers, with the global cost benefit ratio being 4:1.

In the past, the burning of fossil fuels by vehicles and industry produced large amounts of PM2.5 but pollution controls have cut levels significantly in developed nations. However, ammonia emissions have barely fallen in the UK since 1980. This means agriculture is now responsible for a larger share of PM2.5 in the UK. Pollution from wood burning stoves has also risen in prominence.

Other nitrogen compounds, called nitrogen oxides, are emitted by diesel vehicles and damage health in two ways: as irritant gases when first emitted and then by combining with ammonia to form PM2.5. Relatively little has been done to cut ammonia emissions, meaning there are simple policies that would be far more cost-effective in reducing PM2.5 levels than further technological measures to tackle nitrogen oxides from vehicles, the scientists say.

Cutting nitrogen pollution would also tackle the climate crisis, the pollution of rivers and seas, and soil acidification. Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas, causing about 6% of global heating and results mostly from the overuse of fertilisers.

The researchers presented a “#Nitrogen4NetZero” proposal at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow on Wednesday, which aims to ensure cutting nitrogen gases is included in climate targets. The 2019 Colombo declaration, led by Sri Lanka and backed by the UN Environment Programme, aims to cut nitrogen waste by half by 2030 and would save $100bn (£75bn) a year in wasted fertiliser costs.

“The way we use nitrogen is extremely inefficient. About 80% of the nitrogen resources [produced by humans] are lost into the environment,” said Prof Mark Sutton of the UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, a co-author of the study.

The UK government is consulting on banning the use of urea in fertiliser, which emits much more ammonia than ammonium nitrate fertiliser. The Netherlands and Germany already require manure to be injected into fields rather than sprayed on the surface, but there is no such requirement in the UK. “Any farmer that can smell their manure is losing that goodness,” said Sutton.

Air pollution causes at least 7 million premature deaths a year globally, making it a bigger killer than smoking, car crashes or HIV/Aids. Air pollution may be damaging every organ in the human body, according to a comprehensive global review in 2019.

Ammonia from farms behind 60% of UK particulate air pollution – study | Air pollution | The Guardian
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Air pollution linked to increased rheumatoid arthritis severity

Posted on November 4, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd

Air pollution is associated with increased rheumatoid arthritis (RA) disease severity, according to a study published in the October issue of Rheumatology.

Giovanni Adami, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Verona in Italy, and colleagues collected longitudinal data of patients affected by RA and the daily concentrations of air pollutants in the Verona area to examine the correlation between RA flares and air pollution in a case-crossover study. Exposure to pollutants was compared in the 30- and 60-day periods preceding an arthritic flare relative to the 30- and 60-day exposure preceding a low-disease activity visit.

Data were included for 888 RA patients with 3,396 follow-up visits. The researchers identified an exposure-response relationship between air pollutant concentration and the risk for having abnormal C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. The risk for having CRP levels ≥5 mg/L were increased for patients exposed to higher concentrations of air pollutants. In the 60-day period preceding a flare, concentrations of carbon monoxide, nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 µm or less, and ozone were higher.

“The excessive risk was seen even at very low levels of exposure, even below the proposed threshold for the protection of human health,” the authors write. “Our study has important and direct consequences. In order to reduce the burden of RA, public and environmental health policy makers should aim to diminish gaseous and particulate matter emissions to a larger extent than currently recommended.”

Air pollution linked to increased rheumatoid arthritis severity
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Air pollution deaths: Emissions from G20 consumers killed two million people in 2010

Posted on November 3, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd

More than half of premature deaths from air pollution worldwide in 2010 were the result of economic consumption in just 11 G20 countries

Nearly two million premature deaths from air pollution in 2010 were caused by the production of goods for consumers in G20 nations.

That’s according to a model by Keisuke Nansai at the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba, Japan, whose group sought to identify the impact of each nation’s economic consumption on air pollution and the health problems they cause.

In 2010, the latest year for which all figures were available, consumption of goods in the 19 nations of the G20 (the European Union is the other member) resulted in almost two million air pollution-related premature deaths worldwide, with 78,600 of these in infants. The team has called for more collaboration between G20 countries to curb air pollution-related deaths caused as a direct result of the purchasing of goods.

To calculate these figures, the team mapped ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) – microscopic particles that are small enough to enter the lungs and blood where they can cause disease – and estimated the health impacts in 199 countries.

These fine particles arise from the manufacture, transport and disposal of goods. They include black carbon, or soot, which is emitted when diesel, coal and other biomass fuels are burned, together with secondary particles that form in the atmosphere as a result of other emissions.

Globalised trade means that consumption in one country can lead to PM2.5 pollution in another, so the team used trade data from 19 of the G20 nations to create “footprints” that represented the health impact of one country’s consumption in another.

China had the largest number of premature deaths caused by PM2.5 particles, followed by India, the US, Russia and Indonesia. With the exception of the US, most of these deaths were within their own borders. However, the consumption of goods in the US and 10 other G20 nations resulted in more than 50 per cent of the PM2.5-related premature deaths in other countries.

G20 countries need to take more responsibility for their entire footprint, says Nansai, rather than focusing solely on the emissions created from transporting goods across borders.

Francesca Dominici at Harvard University says that the “great majority of the responsibility is on the government and big industry”.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions should also eventually decrease PM2.5 levels, says Dominici: “Air pollution and greenhouse gases share the same emission sources, and both affect the most vulnerable.”

Several higher-income countries, including the UK and the US, have pledged to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the century, although these promises have been criticised by leaders of lower-income countries for not being accompanied by clear plans. China and Russia have pledged to reach net zero by 2060. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi said at the COP26 summit this week that the country will hit net-zero emissions by 2070.

“Honouring climate change agreements will save millions of lives now and also in the future,” says Dominici.

Nansai says that individual consumers can also make a difference. “We believe that consumers should pay attention to whether companies disclose their efforts to deal with air pollution throughout the life cycle of their products, and include this as a criterion for their consumption choices,” he says.

The researchers are currently analysing data from 2015 to update their findings, but are unable to say how the picture may have changed in more recent years. The covid-19 pandemic has decreased air pollution temporarily, but it is already returning to pre-pandemic levels, says Nansai.

“The air quality in developed countries will continue to improve as a result of climate change measures such as renewable energy. However, if nothing changes in developing countries, the number of premature deaths in these countries due to consumption will not change significantly,” says Nansai. “In fact, it will probably rise due to population growth and an increasing number of elderly people vulnerable to disease.”

Journal reference: Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-26348-y

Air pollution deaths: Emissions from G20 consumers killed two million people in 2010 | New Scientist
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Air Pollution Caused By Global Food Production Is Killing More Than 890,000 People A Year, Study Finds

Posted on November 2, 2021 by Respro® UK Ltd

The food we eat is one of the leading sources of the toxic ambient fine particulate matter PM2.5, leading to over 890,000 premature death per year, according to a new study examining air pollution released through the global food supply chain.  

The study by the University of Minnesota, looked into emissions across five stages of food production: pre-production (land-use change, fertilizer production) production (on-farm energy use, manure management, grazing, fertilizer use agricultural waste burning) post-production (food industry, retail), distribution, and waste. 

Most PM2.5 emissions are generated by the energy and transport sectors, by burning fossil fuels which release pollutants in the air. However, the agriculture sector has its own share of such pollutants: the research found the global food system is a significant contributor to total anthropogenic emissions of primary PM2.5 (58%), ammonia (72%), nitrogen oxides (13%), sulfur dioxide (9%), and all other organic compounds released which do not include methane (19%).

Exposure to air pollution is the world’s leading environmental (health) risk factor for mortality. According to the WHO, air pollution kills an estimate of 7 million people worldwide every year, where 4.2 million of death are linked to exposure to PM2.5. Reducing air pollution can improve public health and well-being while reducing greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

“Food systems pose a wicked problem. We pointed out the paradigm of “eating enough and eating right”: it is of utmost importance to meet the food demands of a growing population, but we also need to meet it with the least environmental damage,” said Srinidhi Balasubramanian, lead author of the study while carrying her Postdoctoral Research at the University of Minnesota now Assistant Professor in the Environmental Science and Engineering Department at the Indian Institute of Technology di Bombay.

By reviewing more than 4746 peer-reviewed English language publications from the past decade, the researchers found land-use change, livestock and crop production, and agricultural waste burning produces the highest amount of PM2.5 and directly affect human health. Agricultural production emissions deriving from energy use in farms and fertilizers use were dominant in North America and Europe. In Asia, Africa, and South America, land-use change from forest to feedstock and crop production, manure management, and agricultural waste burning were the primary contributors to PM2.5 emissions, particularly in Brasil, Angola, Indonesia and Thailand.

Research indicated that the number of premature deaths yearly might be even higher than the 890,000 calculated, as air pollution regulations in several countries often do not include the  emissions accounting within the agricultural sector: “We identify gaps in emissions data and air quality predictions as a major limitation in our understanding of the air quality impacts of the global food system.” Emissions from agriculture-driven land-use change and livestock in Africa, as an example, are poorly constrained in comparison to the United States and Europe,” continued Balasubramanian. 

Little is reported as well on ammonia emissions, which is heavily featured within fertilizers, and has a key role in the formation of ambient PM2.5.

Accelerating climate action in all different production stages of the agricultural sector will be vital to decrease air pollution, but without measuring emissions, countries might be unable to identify effective mitigation strategies that could reduce pollution.

Countries their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the non-binding plans set by national governments defining  their intensions with regards to climate change-related actions, offer some examples of how a focus on air pollution can increase climate change mitigation ambition and ultimately tackle food supply chain emissions.

Most companies in the agriculture sector suggest technological solutions can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, proposing climate-smart and sustainable intensification of agriculture to curb emissions.

“Focusing on technological improvements cannot address the core problem and will only delay and deepen the engulfed climate, environmental, health, food and nutrition security crises,” says Lasse Bruun, CEO of  50by40, a global coalition of more than 70 organisations dedicated to cutting the global production and consumption of animal products by 50% by 2040.

Technological developments were found to be only a complementary mitigation practice (link to 10%) whereas reducing intensive farming practices, such as limiting fertilizers use, remains the most effective way for the food supply chain to meet global emission reduction targets.

Livestock farming and industry, which contribute to increasing PM2.5 emissions through land-use, will also need a deep transformation: “A just livestock transition can accelerate equitable food distribution, improve public health and the environment, and result in beneficial socio-economic benefits,” continued Bruun.

Increased commitments from stakeholders along the whole food supply chain will be key to tackle emissions: lowering nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide emissions within food retail, distribution and transportation could be mitigated by shifting away from fossil fuels towards cleaner and energy-efficient technologies. 

Currently, over one third of food worldwide is lost or wasted along the supply chain. New food waste management practices as well as a reduction of food production could help decrease ammonia emissions released by the decomposition of organic waste at landfill sites, which enters the air we breathe.

Air Pollution Caused By Global Food Production Is Killing More Than 890,000 People A Year, Study Finds

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