A new report from the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization has cautioned that the interaction between pollution and climate change would impact hundreds of millions of people in the coming century and urged actin to rein in the harm of more frequent and intense heatwaves and wildfires that are expected to worsen the quality of air we breathe and harm human health and ecosystems.
The WMO’s annual Air Quality and Climate Bulletin examined the impacts of large wildfires across Siberia and western North America in 2021, finding that they produced widespread increases in health hazards, with concentrations in eastern Siberia reaching “levels not observed before.”
“As the globe warms, wildfires and associated air pollution are expected to increase, even under a low emissions scenario,” WMO chief Petteri Taalas said in a statement. “In addition to human health impacts, this will also affect ecosystems as air pollutants settle from the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface.”
Even beyond wildfires, a hotter climate can drive up pollution and worsen air quality. Taalas pointed out that severe heatwaves in Europe and China this year, coupled with stable high atmospheric conditions, sunlight and low wind speeds, have been “conducive to high pollution levels,” warning that “this is a foretaste of the future.”
“We expect a further increase in the frequency, intensity and duration of heatwaves, which could lead to even worse air quality,” he added.
This phenomenon is known as the “climate penalty”, which refers to how climate change amplifies ground-level ozone production, negatively impacting air quality. He warned that most of this increase will happen over Asia, “and there you have about one quarter of the entire world population.”
The report points out that air quality and climate are interconnected, since chemicals that worsen air quality are normally co-emitted with greenhouse gases.
As it is critical for life, worsening air quality will ultimately affect human health. The human race needs to take heed of the WMO warning that taking care of the climate as soon as possible will also lead to better air quality for future generations. It’s not the primary reason to do everything we can to slow down or reverse climate change, but it is another reason for us to get moving.*
