Full Title: Accelerating Country-led Air Quality Reporting to Achieve Clean Air
Author(s): Our Common Air
Publisher(s): Our Common Air
Publication Date: September 30, 2024
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
There is no single, authoritative, comprehensive, regularly updated, database that provides recent national air pollution levels around the world — not even for fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, the deadliest and one of the most commonly tracked air pollutants. Access to basic, timely, recurring global air quality data is essential to identify hotspots for action, provide supporting resources, and track progress on pollution reduction across space and time. The invisibility in data, in turn, makes it harder to convince stakeholders to act, and to hold decision-makers accountable for policies, practices, regulations, laws and investments that impact air quality and public health.
A system is needed to track air pollution that combines existing and new data techniques in ways that bridge the gaps in global air quality information. Such a system is needed urgently, given the health burden of air pollution and the expected increase in that burden with the worsening impacts of climate change. In this paper, they propose a country-led system that incentivises and enables governments to measure, share, and model air quality data – using PM2.5 as an initial focus, while also providing data coverage where air quality management infrastructure is currently lacking. In that way, they can ensure that no country is left out of this global effort.
The authors also propose regular tracking of country-level air quality practices and national ambient air quality standards. They call for commensurate financial resources for developing countries to participate directly, and for intergovernmental agencies to coordinate with other institutions to develop common methodologies and data protocols.