Air Quality, Climate Change Closely Linked

GENEVA - In the first report of its kind, the World Meteorological Organization examines the close link between air quality and climate change and how measures stemming from COVID-19 influenced air quality patterns in 2020.

Government-imposed lockdown measures and travel restrictions to control the spread of COVID-19 resulted in a marked improvement in air quality in many parts of the world. For example, the WMO said Southeast Asia experienced a 40% reduction in air particles in 2020. However, the chief of the WMO’s Atmospheric Environment Research Division, Oksana Tarasova, said the dramatic fall in emissions of key air pollutants was short-lived. She said city dwellers who reveled in seeing blue skies during periods of lockdown inactivity, had to again endure living under a pollution cloud once the cars started rolling again. “As soon as mobility has increased, we are back to business as usual," Tarasova said. "So, those improvements were not very long lasting. And that is why we always stress that the extreme measures which were taken under lockdown is not a substitute for long term policies.”