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WMO Press conference: Air Quality and Climate Bulletin - 30 August 2024
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Edited News , Press Conferences | WMO
WMO Press conference: Air Quality and Climate Bulletin - 05 September 2024
Story: WMO Press conference: Air Quality and Climate Bulletin
TRT: 03’08”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 05 September 2024 - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
SHOTLIST
- Exterior medium shot: UN flag alley.
- Wide shot of the podium at the press conference room.
- SOUNDBITE (English) Lorenzo Labrador, Scientific Officer, WMO: “Almost everybody on Earth, basically nine out of 10 people breathe air that is essentially unfit for purpose. This means that it is air that exceeds the WHO guideline limits and contains a high level of pollutants with low and middle-income countries basically being the most affected.”
- Medium-wide, podium speakers and Press room.
- SOUNDBITE (English) Lorenzo Labrador, Scientific Officer, WMO: “Ambient air pollution alone mostly coming from vehicles and industry causes more than 4.5 million premature deaths a year. Just for context, this is more than those death by malaria and HIV AIDS combined; so air pollution is the biggest environmental risk of our time. But not only is it a health risk in itself, it also exacerbates climate change.”
- Medium, podium speakers from above, TV screens showing speakers in Press room.
- SOUNDBITE (English) Lorenzo Labrador, Scientific Officer, WMO: “We tend to believe that the lower pollution in Europe and China are the direct result of a reduction in emissions in those countries over the years, and we have been noticing this tendency since we started publishing the bulletin back in 2021. So, we can say that we are starting to see a tendency in that regard.”
- Medium-wide, podium speakers and Press room.
- SOUNDBITE (English) Lorenzo Labrador, Scientific Officer, WMO: “Whereas particulate matter is responsible for about eight million premature death a year worldwide, you would not find surprising that the focus is usually on the effects of particular matter on health. However, a 2023 World Meteorological Organization report pointed out that particulate matter can severely affect the productivity of crops - of staple crops - such as maize, rice and wheat.
- Medium-close, TV screen showing Mr. Labrador.
- SOUNDBITE (English) Lorenzo Labrador, Scientific Officer, WMO: “Many of this particulate matter pollution that affect crop yields are due to man-made practices, which include the land use practices such as tillage and harvesting. Also, application of fertilizers and stubble-burning at the end the season, of the growing seasons.”
- Medium, speaker’s hands on desk and screen.
- SOUNDBITE (English) Lorenzo Labrador, Scientific Officer, WMO: “We reported back in 2022 about the 2021 wildfire season in Siberia, which was very, very strong. But there are indications that the wildfire that we had in Canada last year was even stronger with respect to emissions. It broke records concerning the amount of surface area burned over a 20-year period in Canada.”
- Medium-wide, raised shot of podium speakers and Press room.
- SOUNDBITE (English) Lorenzo Labrador, Scientific Officer, WMO: “The first thing that cities have to do is to recognize that the problem exists in the first place. So, those cities and those countries have to acknowledge first that there is an air quality problem and there is sufficient data around the world to basically acknowledge that it is a worldwide problem, particularly in urban areas.”
- Wide, podium and speakers with UN logo providing backdrop.
- Medium, journalist.
We must do more to keep the air we breathe clean: UN weather agency
Unchecked climate change, wildfires and air pollution continue to have “a spiralling, negative impact on health, ecosystems and agriculture”, with millions of deaths attributed to dirty air, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
“Almost everybody on Earth, basically nine out of 10 people breathe air that is essentially unfit for purpose,” said Lorenzo Labrador, Scientific Officer at WMO. “This means that it is air that exceeds the [UN World Health Organization] WHO guideline limits and contains a high level of pollutants with low and middle-income countries basically being the most affected.”
Heat driver
That stark finding is just one of many unsettling discoveries featuring in the latest WMO Air Quality and Climate Bulletin. It highlights, for instance, that the first eight months of 2024 have seen no let-up in periods of intense heat and persistent droughts around the world, fuelling the risk of wildfires and air pollution.
“Climate change means that we face this scenario with increasing frequency. Interdisciplinary science and research is key to finding solutions,” the UN agency warned.
The clear link between polluted air and poor health is clear, according to the WHO, which has urged global action to counter “one of the greatest environmental risks to health” and numerous preventable illnesses including stroke, heart disease, lung cancer and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma.
“Ambient air pollution alone mostly coming from vehicles and industry causes more than 4.5 million premature deaths a year,” WMO’s Mr. Labrador told journalists in Geneva.
“This is more than those death by malaria and HIV AIDS combined; so air pollution is the biggest environmental risk of our time. But not only is it a health risk in itself, it also exacerbates climate change.”
Regional trends
A snapshot of regional emissions variations featured in the UN agency report indicated a trend for “lower pollution in Europe and China” than North America and India, where there was an increase in pollution emissions from human and industrial activities.
This is likely the “direct result of a reduction in emissions in those countries over the years, and we have been noticing this tendency since we started publishing the bulletin back in 2021.”
And while it is generally widely understood that polluted air containing microscopic particulates - including sulphates, nitrates, ammonia, soot from human activity and wildfires - is harmful, Mr. Labrador reiterated the UN agency’s 2023 findings that these and other pollutants have a damaging impact on food security, too.
Crop yields down
“Particulate matter can severely affect the productivity of crops - of staple crops - such as maize, rice and wheat,” he said. “Many of this particulate matter pollution that affect crop yields are due to man-made practices, which include the land use practices such as tillage and harvesting. Also, application of fertilizers and stubble-burning at the end the season, of the growing seasons.”
New data-crunching on naturally occurring wildfires around the world last year also indicated that the inferno that spread across Canada in 2023 “was even stronger with respect to emissions” than the 2021 wildfire season in Siberia – although that was “very, very strong”, the WMO officer insisted.
“[The Canada fires] broke records concerning the amount of surface area burned over a 20-year period.”
To coincide with this year’s Clean Air for Blue Skies Day on Saturday 7 September, the UN agency urged governments to protect health, the environment and the economy, given the cost ramifications of the air pollution.
“The first thing that cities have to do is to recognize that the problem exists in the first place,” Mr. Labrador said. “So, those cities and those countries have to acknowledge first that there is an air quality problem and there is sufficient data around the world to basically acknowledge that it is a worldwide problem, particularly in urban areas.”
Teleprompter
Yes.
Good afternoon, everybody.
Thank you very much for joining us at
the press conference of the World Meteorological Organisation.
I see there are quite a few people online, even though we're speaking to an empty room
here. And I know it was a busy briefing day. So thank you.
Thank you for joining us anyway.
So we're here today
to launch the annual
a World Meteorological Organisation bulletin on air quality and climate.
This is something that we do every year ahead of the International Day of
Blue Skies for clean air which falls on 7 September every every year
we are embargo.
The contents of this press conference and the press release and the report
to Thursday the Fifth of September. So that's a couple of days ahead
ahead of the day itself.
The press release will be available in all official UN languages.
At the moment, we only have the English version,
but it will be available in the other languages, hopefully by Monday.
And we will send that out to you. So grateful if you could respect the embargo.
The press conference will be in English if there are requests for follow up
interviews with my colleague Dr
Lorenzo Labrador.
He can
do them in Spanish and
French.
So without any further ado, I'll hand over the floor to
Dr
Lorenzo Labrador. He's a scientific officer in
the W
global Atmosphere Watch programme and he's the co ordinator of this report.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Claire,
Welcome everybody. It is my pleasure to be here to launch the 2024 edition
of the air quality and climate change
polluting of the World Meteorological Organisation.
So I will start by just giving a very brief introduction of the framework
within which these pollutants sits. And it
is, as you may know,
in the framework of the day of clean air for blue skies.
So the World Health Organization's data
show that almost everybody on earth basically
nine out of 10 people breathe air that is essentially unfit for purpose.
This means that it is air that exceeds the
guideline limits and
contains high levels of pollutants
with low and middle income countries basically being the most affected.
Ambient air pollution alone, mostly coming from vehicles and industry,
causes more than 4.5 million premature deaths a year
just for context. This is more than those deaths by malaria and HIV A. I DS combined
so air pollution is the biggest environmental risk of our time.
But not only is it a health risk in itself,
it also exacerbates climate change, and there will be more on that.
As I describe the bulletin.
It also causes economic losses and reduces agricultural productivity,
amongst other things.
So,
encouraged by the increased interest of
the international community on air pollution,
the UN General Assembly decided back in 2019
to declare
7 September of every year as the international Day of clean Air for blue skies.
So it is in the framework of these days that the
WS
air quality and climate bulletin is every year produced for the community.
WM
OS Air quality and Climate bulletin is part
of a continuous effort to drive the message
that air quality and climate change are two
inextricably linked topics and should be tackled together.
We cannot treat air quality and climate change as separate,
independent and isolated topics.
So
in order to drive this message every year,
we ask the community of scientists that advise the World Meteorological
Organisation on matters pertaining to air quality to
come together and submit stories based on their research
and when possible,
using data from the World Meteorological Organisation network of stations
to present and submit stories to us
that highlight the interlinks between climate change and air quality.
So every year our scientists come together,
they submit a number of stories that are then collated
and put together into our annual publication,
which is the air quality and climate policy.
So this year, air quality and climate bulleting is no exception.
It covers a series of topics ranging from a global view of particulate matter
pollution around the world from the Copernicus
Anno
Services and another agency as well.
There is also,
um, a story on the, uh wildfire, particularly strong wildfire seasons in Canada
and, uh, in Chile back in 2023.
There is a story on the effects of particulate matter
pollution on the um affecting crops and crop yields,
which is something relatively new,
and that comes from a report published by the WMO back in 2023.
There is also a story on bio
aerosols and another story on new particle formation.
So I will briefly describe each of the stories for your reference.
Let's start with the global picture of particulate matter pollution. Back in 2023
we regularly use the services of the Copernicus Atmospheric
Services, known as C a ms
to run what we call a reanalysis,
which is a combined product between
observations and satellite observations and modelling
to basically give us a rundown of PM pollution around the world.
But this year, and in order to add robustness to our product,
we decided to combine it with a product called the God Earth Observing Systems.
Um uh
reanalysis. So we are having two products comparing
global
allosteric pollution from particulate matter around the world,
and that we are happy to say that
both products essentially agree on the global picture.
So and the global picture is that we are seeing a trend whereby there is what we
call a positive anomaly or essentially more PM
than the reference period of 2003 to 2023
in areas such as Southeast Asia and India.
And on the other hand, we have, on the other hand,
we have what we call a negative anomaly or less PM pollution
in areas such as China and Europe,
and now we tend to believe that the lower pollution in Europe and
China are the direct result of a reduction in emissions in those countries.
Over the years,
we have been noticing this tendency since we
started publishing the polluting back in 2020 21.
So we we can say that we are starting to see a tendency in that regard.
On the other hand, regarding, for example, dust storms,
we both products saw a decrease in dust
emissions from the Sahara and the Arabian Peninsula.
And it's worth pointing out that this, um,
dust emissions from, uh,
deserts are controlled by meteorological conditions
and not necessarily by manmade activity.
So this is not something that we can attribute in any way
to, uh, manmade activities. But we have seen this decrease in the last year.
So we we are happy that there is an agreement in in both products
that, uh,
that validates basically the the the publication that
we've done with the cams reanalysis before.
And we probably keep the second product on board to add robustness to, um,
to our observations,
we we also had a very interesting story on the effects of particular matter on crops.
And whereas particular matter is responsible for about
8 million premature deaths a year worldwide,
you would not find surprising that the focus is
usually on the effects of particular matter on health.
How,
however, a 2023 World
Meteorological
Organisation report pointed out that particular matter can severely affect
the productivity of crops of staple crops such as maize,
rice and wheat.
And
so the scientists came together and synthesised this report in the bulletin
and amongst the things that, uh that, uh, that we found out, was that
in the hotspots particular natural pollution areas such as Asia,
Southeast Asia particularly, and China,
you have a big part of the population of the world that needs feeding.
So any effects on crop yield in those areas is really critical.
And, uh, we have found that basically, uh, studies in China have
have concluded
that direct deposition or settling of particular matter from the air on to plan
can physically block the leaves from receiving
sunlight directly and also from exchanging gases,
oxygen and carbon dioxide and water vapour between the leaves and the atmosphere.
And this has resulted. According to one study in yield losses
for rice and wheat of about 4.5% for each of those two staple crops,
so the effects are noticeable and have been studied before.
Also, particulate matter not only settles on the leaves,
but it also diffuses light and basically reduces the amount of light that reaches
the leaves and therefore reduces their ability to do the photosynthesis
and create those crops.
Those effects have also been measuring in modelling studies,
and up to 10 to 15% have been seen in modelling studies to be a crop yield loss
due to these effects.
So
the bulletin also noticed that
many of these particular natural pollution that affects
crop yields are due to manmade practises,
which include
land use practises such as tillage and harvesting.
Also,
application of fertilisers and stubble burning at the
end of the season of the growing seasons.
So the BULLETING offers solutions that range from solutions at the farm level,
such as planting trees around crops in order to shield the land
and provide basically a physical barrier to dust pollution
to other enhanced agricultural practises,
such as avoiding reducing emissions of PM
and avoiding ammonia volatility,
which is one of the main responsible for PM
on crops.
So
this is basically a fairly new and recent study in that we wish to draw
the attention of the community to the effects of particular matter on crops as well.
Another story that also caught the attention of
the scientific community concerning air quality and climate change
was the unusually strong 2023 wildfire seasons in Canada and in Chile,
starting with Canada back in May 2023.
Uh, there was a persistent and uh, a severe drought situation in western Canada
that started the fire season
relatively early in May.
So fires starting, uh, started in in West Canada in May, and as the
as the summer drew on,
those conditions spread to eastern Canada. And then we had fire starting in Quebec.
So that fire season resulted in a noticeable degradation of air quality,
not only in Canada but also in the northeastern United States states.
But furthermore,
networks were able to measure the smoke pollution
that came from those fires as far afI
as southern Greenland, Iceland, the
AAU
island and even Western Europe.
So this is to draw the message that pollution knows no boundaries and that basically
forest fires that occur in Canada can reach as far
a field as across the Atlantic and into Europe.
Likewise, uh, in January and February 2023 we had an unusual, uh,
an unusually strong wildfire season in Chile,
particularly around the Santiago de Chile metropolitan region,
with over 400 wildfires,
many of them, uh, the result of arson and, uh, land clearing,
but many of them also sparked by the initially warm and dry conditions in that year.
So measurement stations basically not only measure the smoke pollution
and particulate matter that comes out of those fires,
but they also measure high CO concentrations. And CO is a very strong precursor of
ozone, of ground level ozone
and concurrently
spikes in ozone. Up to
127 parts per billion were measured around the area of the fires,
basically making the relationship between the dry and hot conditions
and the emissions of precursor of ozone such as VOCs
and
so for comparison, The average
ocean concentration at ground level is about 51 P PV,
which is in line with the World Health Organisation,
Uh, maximum daily eight hour daily exposure average for for the region,
so we had two very strong wildfires.
Likewise, we reported back in 2022 about the 2021 wildfire season in Siberia,
which was very, very strong.
But there are indications that the wildfire that we had in
Canada last year was even stronger with respect to emissions.
It broke records concerning the amount of surface area burned
over a 20 year period in Canada.
So we also had a story on bio
aerosols
and bio
aerosols are important for a number of reasons.
First off, they are a big source of allergies,
so pollen and bacteria and spores from plants can be a big source of allergy.
But they are also very good biomarkers and indications
of when plants the plant cycles start and stop.
So up until now, the
pollen measuring stations have rely on manual methods.
But in the story that we feature, basically, it
mentions
the advent of new technologies that are basically
making it possible to analyse in near real time
the composition of pollens and bio
aerosols by a new set of technologies that are being deployed in network stations,
mostly across Europe.
At this moment,
these networks, given the technology involved in the in,
the instruments require a huge data infrastructure
that has to be created and created,
and that basically allows those data to then
be ingested into models that can more accurately predict
and concentrations and basically make it easier for allergy sufferers around the
world to know where the hot spots for bio aerosols are.
So there is good news in the in the way that technology is lending a hand
in us being able to make better predictions of bio
aerosols.
And, uh, last and not least, we have a
a, um,
a nice piece on what we call a new particle formation episodes basically
in the atmosphere and depending on the type of pollutants there are,
you can form new particles from old ones or from smaller ones.
For example,
cloud droplets form from the accumulation of water vapour
onto aerosols that are already present in the air,
And a long term term
long term analysis of data from the global atmosphere watch network of stations
seems to indicate that there is a measurable decrease
in what we call new particle formation episodes around the world.
And that is particularly over urban areas,
researchers notice at about a 4% decrease year on year on new particle formations.
So I hear you ask what
the cause for this decrease in particle formation.
A
big part of it is reduced emissions
in some countries, particularly the US,
Europe and China,
and that creates basically less aerosols or results in less aerosols in the air.
But that also means that there is going to be few what we call cloud
condensation nuclei or those small particles around which
water vapour coalesce to form water droplets.
The good news is that there is less PM, uh, pollution in the air in those cities.
But there's also a flip side to that coin, which is that
the the way that clouds,
forms and the properties of the cloud that are
formed as a result are going to be different.
So this basically tell us that we need to keep monitoring this situation and
see what effects these reduced particle formations can have on the way clouds form.
And in the way, basically,
those clouds react with incoming solar radiation and therefore what
attendant consequences that might have on climate change going forward.
So
this is in a nutshell. The stories that are featured in this year's
air quality and climate bulletin.
With that, I leave the floor to you and thank you very much.
Thank you. Um
so your heads are probably reeling from all those details. But if there are
any questions can you please just raise your hands? And I seen one from
Agnes Pedrero
from the French news agency
AFP Agnes
and we can't hear you.
I can't hear I can't hear Agnes.
OK,
Agnes
U TV will try and sort it out. Can we pass on to the next one? Paula Dupraz
do
Or Agnes? If not, put it in the chat and I'll see if we can answer it.
But to go on to Paula?
Yes. Can you hear me?
Yes. So, uh, thank you for all of that. Thanks for taking my my question. Um
uh I guess one of the first questions that I would have is, uh, you had mentioned how
there appeared to be, um
a, um
uh, re reduction in the, uh, amount of pollution, um, in
Europe and in in China.
Um, whereas in, uh, Southeast Asia, it's, um
it's, uh it's increasing.
Uh, and I was just wondering where the US, um, is positioned in,
Um, that, uh, equation.
And then, uh, whilst I did
get, you know, a few hints of some, um,
uh, solutions as to how to reduce, um,
the effects of, uh, uh,
PM on crops, for instance. Uh, I'm just wondering,
uh,
in the case of developing countries where you do have that, you know,
that increase in in pollution.
Um, you know what's, uh how How you would, you know, tackle some of the other issues.
I mean, I'm thinking of,
you know, quite a few, um, large cities in Latin America where it's,
uh, the the pollution levels are just, uh you know, pretty much, you know,
nearly as high, I guess, as as
as what we've seen, and that has been much more reported in in Asia. But, um
yeah, what? Uh, what sort of, um,
suggestions. Uh, would you have to, uh, to tackle that? And are also,
uh, is there not too much focus on the the biggest of the emitters?
Uh, China US and so forth. And perhaps less so on some of those countries that, um
that are continuing to pollute and, you know, emit, uh, carbon. Uh,
you know, increasingly,
we need to clarify It's not just
Yeah, uh Well, yes, I.
I will start with, uh, with, uh with your first question, which concerns the, uh,
global PM particulate matter pollution.
Uh, story that we had at the beginning.
I. I mentioned that we saw, uh, negative anomalies in both Europe and China
and a positive anomalies or an increase in emissions,
particularly in the Indian subcontinent and part of Southeast Asia.
You ask where the US was in that?
And if you look at Figure One in the bulletin I can describe
it for you is that we see basically a status quo kind of situation
with respect to the reference period. So we see a very slight
negative anomaly or decrease in emissions in the Copernicus atmospheric services
reanalysis
and nearly no tendency at all in the Geos I
in the Godard
Earth observing system
reanalysis. So that seems to indicate that in general,
the signal is is very weak. So there's barely a change
in particular matter emissions in 2023 with respect to the 22,003.
2022 reference period.
OK, back to your second question, which was basically partly linked to, uh, the, uh,
PM pollution on on effect on crops.
It
it is a global problem.
So, uh, I just mentioned basically some of the, uh, PM hotspots
around the world where you have a net decrease in crop yields
due to particulate matter emissions.
It also happened that those places, particularly the, um,
Asian, uh, the Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent are PM hotspots.
So there are areas were very, very high
particular matter concentrations.
As can also be, uh, noticed from the, um from the first story on particular matter,
uh, pollution around the world.
So you have a combination of many people living there together,
a lot of agricultural practises going on at the same time
and also high levels of PM concentration. So
this is basically kind of the
perfect storm for a noticeable effect on crop yields.
Now, with respect to other countries,
when when we're talking about the pollution here,
we're talking when we're talking air quality,
we're talking about all types of air pollution,
so it's not only limited to particular matter,
we're also talking about carbon emissions.
We're talking about aerosols. We're talking about ozone. So we're talking about
a combination, a deadly cocktail
of emissions that come mostly from manmade activities.
And, uh, well, your particular question is,
what kind of advice would you give to people in Latin American cities,
where air quality is really suffering as a result of emissions there?
Well,
the first thing that I could advise
is basically find strategies to reduce emissions.
That is usually the first
actionable measure that can be taken, that
a step in the right direction. It is easier said than done. I.
I acknowledge that I mean reducing emissions in a city
like I don't know Sao Paulo or Santiago or Bogota.
It's a lot easier said than done. I mean that that
basically goes by many different sections,
such as transition to more efficient vehicles or electric vehicles.
But then, how does a city plan for that?
It depends on the national budgets of the area,
but the first thing that cities have to do is
to recognise that the problem exists in the first place.
So those cities and those countries have to acknowledge first
that there is an air quality problem,
and there is sufficient data around the world to basically
acknowledge that it is a worldwide problem, particularly in urban areas.
So what do you do? Well, you have to reduce emissions. How do you do that?
That will depend on the specifics of each country, the specifics of each city
and what measures can be implemented by the local government.
I hope that answers your question.
Yeah, and we'll take,
and one from Agnes pure
of a FP in the in the chat. And then we'll go to Robin Millard of a FP. Um,
you mentioned many stories in the bulletin.
I would ask you, What is the main conclusion of this bulletin?
Short and sweet.
The
the main message that we try to drive year on year
with the bulletin is that air quality and climate change are linked
that one has to do a lot with the other,
that many of the pollutants that cause climate change
are also
are emitted together with those pollutants that cause degradation in our quality.
So you cannot look at both as separate items.
So this basically is the message that encompasses and
surrounds all the stories that we have here,
so What we have here in this poly
are different instances of this problem
by PM pollution on crops or being by big wildfires that
are caused by partly by conditions that are exacerbated by climate change
and that then cause a degradation in air quality.
So you can clearly see the link between the two in many of the stories here.
So these different stories have all one common element,
and that is that climate change and
air quality are strongly and inextricably linked.
I hope that answers your question.
I think so.
So the next question from Robyn Miller, who's also with the French news agency
AFP Robyn
Hi. Thank you. Um
I just wanted to ask in which countries or cities do you see
the worst examples of of bad air
and, uh, in in real terms. What is it like to be living there and to be breathing in,
uh, the most polluted air on earth? What does that do to you? Thank you.
Uh, that That's a very good question. Um,
it it is not a simple answer. I mean,
as as I mentioned at the beginning of of this presentation nine out of
10 people in the world breathe air that is simply not fit for purpose.
And most of the human population are now living in urban areas.
So most people who live in cities, no matter which cities
it, they are likely to be breathing air that is not fit for purpose.
And that is basically, uh, contains level of pollutants that are well above
guidelines for a healthy living. So
I would say that most cities around the world would
have that problem and I wouldn't think Of course,
the bigger the city,
the more emissions that you have that are associated with traffic and industry,
the worse the air quality is going to be.
But, uh, but most cities will have that problem to a lesser or bigger extent
as to what kind of effects that have on you.
There is a number of studies,
basically that that link poor air quality to premature death.
As I mentioned at the beginning,
outdoor,
poor outdoor air quality is responsible for 4.5 million premature deaths a year,
and that is basic because we inhale a cocktail of pollutants that basically
have a series of negative consequences on the way we function as entities
ranging from cardiovascular disease to
brain disease and others.
So that might cause obstruction of arteries that might cause
accumulation of toxic pollutants in your blood that might lead to
of health down the line.
I mean, II, I have heard that, for example,
living in a mega city is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day
by the type of pollution that you ingest.
But there are many, many studies down there, and I cannot give you specifics that,
uh, that outline,
what are the specific consequences of breathing this bad air
that we have in most cities around the world?
And just to say the full bulletin,
it is available on the link at the end of the
press conference press release that we sent you the trello board.
If you
have problems accessing it, just just let me know.
In last year's bulletin, we did actually have a case study.
I think it was from Sao Paulo
just on the effects of greening the cities, planting, planting trees.
I don't know if you want to. That is a practical solution. If you want to talk to that.
And then Robin still has his hand up.
Yeah. Thank you, Claire, for, uh, reminding me of that. Yes.
Let's see your bulletin.
We had a piece on what is called the heat urban island effect,
which is basically the the properties that urban environments have to
increase the temperature as compared to greener surroundings in the suburbia.
And, uh, and, uh, and the countryside.
So it was basically, uh, realised that one strategy to mitigate
the increased temperatures in city that
amongst other things, can lead to increased ozone episodes.
Because temperature is one of the requirements that
you need in order to have increased ozone
ground level on episodes,
it is to basically green the cities up to plant trees to
basically increase the green surfaces you have in the way of parks
That has measurable decreases in temperature and therefore an
impact on the air quality in those cities.
OK, and back to Robin.
Uh, is that still the same question, or do you have a follow up robin?
No, it's, uh it's a different question.
Um, I just wanted to know if there was anything particularly, uh,
innovative going on out there in the world to, uh, to improve air quality.
Um, you know, so
you know, beyond, uh, the things that you mentioned, like planting trees, like
very sort of futuristic ideas that could perhaps improve, uh,
the air quality that we're breathing.
I, I
I'm not sure if finding a a silver technological bullet
to the problem of air quality would be the right approach.
The scientific community is in complete agreement that reducing emissions
is the step in the right direction. And the first step that we have to take.
I doubt that we
create a machine that will somehow vacuum the air and
clean it up for us and basically exhale cleaner air.
On the other hand, on the other side,
it would be fantastic if we have such a technology.
But there is nothing that I am aware that at this moment works in that direction.
So I think it would be way,
way easier to reduce emissions on a global scale than it would be to invest
in technologies that would mitigate the problem
as opposed to just reducing emissions outright.
We W
did a report a couple of months ago
just saying that
we're getting more low cost sensors now
to improve measuring and especially that's very localised things like
areas of heavy traffic you weren't involved in that.
You probably know more about it than I do.
Yeah, Claire brings about a very good point.
In order to have a better assessment of the
global picture related to air quality and climate change,
we need
as good measurements as we can.
The global atmosphere watch of the
World Meteorological Organisation has a comprehensive network
of stations that basically take the pulse on air quality around the world,
both at the urban level and also in what you call the
background atmosphere in those places far away from the inference of emissions,
when you can have a better idea of what the
global concentration of pollutants is after a long time.
So having the most comprehensive and better network
of sensors around the world will allow the scientific
community to have a better idea of what the
global air quality and atmospheric pollution situation is.
Local sensors are kind of the new kid on the block.
It is kind of the new technology that we have out there,
and, uh, they have several, um, things that seem to attract to be attractive.
The low cost, probably being one of them.
So they at this. At this point in time, the scientific community is looking at
the possibility of integrating or seeing if local sensors
can be deployed and integrated to basically fill the gaps
in those areas where our measurements are few and far between.
As of now, this technology is new enough that we do not think
that they can replace or even come
the network of high-quality laboratory grade instruments that are
used to measure concentrations of pollutants around the world,
particularly since we time.
They tend to deviate and basically degrade the kind of measurements that they make.
When we are talking about
atmospheric pollution. We are talking about trends,
which is the tendencies of certain pollutants over long periods of time.
Only at this point in time, laboratory grade instruments are cap
of accurately measuring those trends over long periods of time.
Low-cost sensors are not there
but for having snapshots basically instantaneous pictures of what
the situation might be say in a city.
They might be useful, but at this point in time,
we do not believe that they can complement, let alone replace,
the kind of high grade laboratory sensors that we
deploy for the kind of measurements that we make.
Thanks very much.
I can't see any more questions
on the platform. So with that, thank you very much indeed.
For giving up your time on a Friday afternoon
in August. As I said, the full bulletin
is available on the trailer. If you haven't got it, I can send it to you via email.
And we will have the press release hopefully by Monday in all official languages.
So thanks very much. And thank you. To Lorenzo. Thank you. Bye bye.
Have a nice weekend
and thank you to you, TV.