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David James Molden
4 mins Read
Fifty out of fifty one cities in northern South Asia and the Hindu Kush Himalaya that appear in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) air quality database do not meet the recommended guideline of annual average fine particle concentration (PM2.5) below 10 micrograms per cubic metre. Twelve of these cities have air pollution that is at least more than 10 times above the guideline value. Many more cities with extremely unhealthy air don’t appear in the WHO database; neither do vast rural areas with bad air quality.
This figure from the recently published The Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment: Mountains, Climate Change, Sustainability and People report graphically represents these fifty one cities and the recorded level of air pollution.
In recent years much of the Indo-Gangetic Plain and many Himalayan valleys have seen rapid increases in air pollution. Economic growth has been accompanied by rapid increase in motor vehicles, industrial production, brick and cement buildings and the production of garbage that is often burned.
While hundreds of millions of people still face extreme air pollution inside their homes while cooking with solid fuels, changes in agricultural practices have also contributed to increased emissions. Across the plains, hand-harvesting of rice and wheat has been replaced by combine harvesters that leave tall stubble in the fields that are often burned. During the “burning season” in November and April smoke from agricultural fires dominates over other pollution sources not just in rural areas but even in cities like Delhi.
Air pollution’s toll on health is immense in our region. In Delhi, lung surgeon Dr Arvind Kumar has examined and recorded lungs of 30 year old non-smokers that are as damaged as the lungs of 60 year old life-long smokers used to be. Air pollution does not only damage lungs; it also increases incidences of stroke and heart attacks. For every 100,000 people, between 100 and 200 die from air pollution each year in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan. In Nepal, outdoor air pollution kills more people every year than the 2015 earthquake did.
Air pollution also worsens the climate crisis. Black carbon, ozone and other short-lived climate pollutants contribute additional warming beyond that caused by carbon dioxide. Himalayan glaciers are melting faster because of air pollutants. Pollutants also profoundly impact the monsoon, with documented flooding events in recent years where air pollutants modified clouds, changing how much rain fell where and when.
The IPCC’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 Degrees, released in early October 2018, raises the alarm about catastrophic impacts of climate change if the global average temperature increase exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius. The report shows that concerted and rapid action is needed within the next decade if the 1.5 degree target is to be met. This requires reducing not just CO2 emissions but also addressing air pollutants that have a climate impact. The Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment, launched at ICIMOD in February, rings an even louder alarm: Even a 1.5 degree global average temperature increase implies 1.8 to 2.2 degrees of warming in the mountains and a loss of one third of our glacier volume, with major downstream consequences.
Another recent assessment focuses on the solutions. Air Pollution in Asia and the Pacific: Science-Based Solutions, released by UN Environment in January, uses a systematic approach to identify the twenty-five most promising measures that reduce both air pollution and climate change in Asia. Often the same measure contributes to reductions in both CO2 and air pollutants. The measures include scaling up of conventional air quality measures (such as enforcing vehicular emission standards and post-combustion controls in industries), implementation of next-stage measures that are not yet major components of clean air policies (such as preventing forest fires, reducing agricultural crop residue burning and improving brick kiln efficiency), as well as measures that contribute to development priority goals that have benefits for the atmosphere (such as switching to clean cooking and heating, increasing power generation by renewable sources, improving public transport, and improving leakage controls in oil and gas production). The report quantifies the benefits of each measure and of all 25 measures for Asia’s different sub-regions. Together they could allow much of Asia’s population to breathe clean air, while contributing to a reduction in average global temperature increase.
Together the three reports provide a clear picture of the interconnectedness of air quality and climate issues in the HKH region and beyond, of the cost of inaction, and of the available solutions. The problems and solutions of air pollution and climate change are interconnected; they are both related to human interaction with the atmosphere over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. Effectively addressing them requires a strong scientific evidence base, but just as importantly, strong public awareness, leadership, coordination across boundaries and across different levels of government, and mechanisms to quickly scale up solutions. We can draw inspiration from the experiences of others. Mexico City has cleaned up its air pollution and many Chinese cities have made tremendous progress. These places show that it requires persistence, often a step by step approach, and a strong public voice to make it happen. The first step is to ask ourselves, “What can we do?” It requires everyone, including you, reader, to be aware of how you are affecting the atmosphere. How does your garbage get disposed? Do your travels pollute the air? How far away do the things that you buy originate, and how do they reach you?
山地被广泛认为是生物多样性的发源地,其陡峭的斜坡孕育了各种繁复的生命形式。这些地区作为自然的庇护所变得愈发重要:虽然它们只占据了地球总面积的四分之一,却容纳了地球上85%的两栖动物、鸟类和哺乳动物。这种丰富的自然资源在联合国教科文组织的738个全球生物圈保护区中得到体现,其中明显超过一半位于山区。 然而,令人担忧的是,这些自然资源的非凡丰富正面临威胁。过去,由于偏远或地形困难,山地得以免受人类干扰,但如今这种状况逐渐减少。曾经被视为大自然摇篮和避难所的山地正在逐渐转变成墓地。在兴都库什-喜马拉雅地区,上个世纪就已经失去了70%的生物多样性。这些损失,包括物种的灭绝,如今正以加速度增长,正如ICIMOD的重要评估报告《兴都库什喜马拉雅的水、冰、社会和生态系统》(简称《HIWISE报告》)所指出的那样。 在公众、政治和外交层面,人们越来越认识到自然是我们当前危机中最重要的解决方案之一。联合国已宣布2021-2030年为生态系统恢复十年,去年,《昆明-蒙特利尔全球生物多样性框架》的指导下,全球100多个政府承诺在2030年之前将30%的陆地和海洋保留给自然,其中包括兴都库什-喜马拉雅地区。今年,在联合国全球气候大会COP28上,自然首次成为讨论的核心议题。 这些努力,以及今年国际山岳日的“生态系统恢复”主题,为恢复和保护山区景观提供了迫切需要的推动力。那么,我们的八个成员国离实现“30x30”目标有多近呢?到目前为止,不丹是唯一一个实际超额达标的国家,其51.4%的土地面积已经属于各种保护区类别。 尼泊尔只有不到24%的土地受到保护;中国仅为16%,略高于目标的一半;巴基斯坦占12%;印度为8%;缅甸为7%;孟加拉国为5%,阿富汗为4%。 令人担忧的是,在整个兴都库什-喜马拉雅地区,自然资源仍然丰富的关键区域仍处在保护之外:67%的生态区、39%的生物多样性热点、69%的关键生物多样性区域以及76%的重要鸟类和生物多样性区都没有得到保护。 现有的保护区域犹如在人类改变过的景观中的“孤岛”,缺乏与其他保护区域的连通走廊,无法满足广泛分布的物种需求,并且面临非法捕猎、侵占和资源开采的压力。现有的保护区域不足以确保成功保护我们地区的象征性物种,包括亚洲象、独角犀牛和孟加拉虎。 一个尚未尝试的解决方案是建立跨界生物圈保护区,这将允许在景观层面进行综合保护。实现这一目标需要跨越国家边界的共同政治承诺,并在共享生态系统的管理方面展开合作。ICIMOD将积极推动我们区域成员国接受这一解决方案。 然而,底线是,要扭转自然的损失,我们必须对其进行估值并提供相应的资金支持。只要经济学家继续将其价值定为零,就不会引起足够的重视。在进行估值之前,拥有大量自然资本但经济欠发达的国家将因为缺乏3A信用评级而难以以较低贷款利率借款。必须为该地区的国家提供更便宜的资本来促使自然的恢复:这是ICIMOD将与我们的成员、多边开发银行和其他机构紧急合作推进的事项。为了防止地球系统完全崩溃,我们必须为大自然提供一个适宜的生存环境,这一观点从未像现在这样显而易见。
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