Can developing countries be exempt from the duty to improve urban air quality?

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This post discusses whether the efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and to use clean for transportation should only be made by developed countries. For this discussion, I used China's Air Pollution Action Plan as an example.
According to Fenger (1999), the effects of air pollutants are not limited to cities, they are a worldwide problem. This is because air is not geographically subjugated by borders or city boundaries. Discussions about the air quality of cities began in Europe, where climate change was severely affected by the rapidly deteriorating urban air quality since the Industrial Revolution. In 1974, UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) introduced the Global Environmental Monitoring Plan and, in 1979, it warned the UN Council about global warming. This was the first time that climate change was introduced to the international agenda. Consequently, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992.
However, after the conclusion of the agreement, only developed countries strived to monitor and reduce emissions of air pollutants. The developing countries had taken a step back and were less involved in monitoring because they were focused on economic growth.

China has developed its economy at a tremendous rate since the 2000s. Fenger (1999) defined China as a developing country, however, at the present time, it is difficult to conclude whether China is still a developing country. China's international status has apparently risen as well as its economic and material growth is enormous. At the same time, the air quality in China's metropolitan areas has become so bad that comparable to European cities during the Industrial Revolution. In response to this change, Jin et al. (2016) divided the causes of air pollution in metropolitan areas into three time periods. In the '70s and '90s, factories and power plants in China used coal fuel. In the ‘90s to 2000, the number of vehicles in major cities had increased. For example, the number of private vehicle ownership increased eight-fold from 1990 to 2000. From 2000 to the present, car ownership has increased dramatically to the areas surrounding cities. (Please watch the video on YouTube, China’s toxic smog – BBC News (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nFZaSbkf0U) China's rapidly deteriorating atmosphere affected its neighbors, South Korea, and Japan.

Figure 1 South Korea and Japan affected by China's atmosphere (the redder index, the worse air quality): 2018.10.16 real-time index


Source: The World Air Quality Index Project Team (2018)

China announced its five-year air pollution action plan in 2013 to solve the serious air pollution problem. The action plan is a significant move on the part of the Chinese government. This means that China has changed the paradigm of all its policy decisions rather than consider only their own development. They corrected previous policy direction errors, realized the seriousness of environmental problems that occurred, and called for policy keynote changes. This is a welcome change for China and their neighbors. Because of its regime and the characteristic of its power structure, China's policy implementation is very efficient. In fact, China has already succeeded in reducing pollution levels in three major Chinese metropolitan cities by 33 percent, which it had been targeting by 2017. This is an example of China's ability to change and quickly implement policies.

China’s progress shows that developing countries are no longer exempt from monitoring the emissions from their own development. Many efforts to establish new laws and implement mid or long-term plans and policies related to transport policy are grounds for this.

Back to the initial question, “Can developing countries be exempt from the problems of urban air pollution?” My answer is "No, they aren’t. Every city should be concerned with the problems of air pollution and change their policies, regardless of the level of development of the country."

Bibliography


“Air Pollution in China: Real-time Air Quality Index Visual Map.” The World Air Quality Index Project Team 2018. https://aqicn.org/map/china

Fenger, J. “Urban air quality.” Atmospheric environment, 33(29), 4877-4900. 1999.

Hao, F. “China releases 2020 action plan for air pollution.” Eco-Business. July 2018. https://www.eco-business.com/news/china-releases-2020-action-plan-for-air-pollution/

Jin, Y., Andersson, H., & Zhang, S. “Air pollution control policies in China: a retrospective and prospects.” International journal of environmental research and public health, 13(12), 1219. 2016.
“Notice of the State Council on Printing and Distributing the 13th Five-Year Plan for Ecological Environmental Protection” The State Council of the People's Republic of China. 2016. http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2016-12/05/content_5143290.htm




Written by: Kyuri Kim
Edited by: Sophie Appell

Comments

  1. Jensen PerrickNovember 22, 2018 at 12:22 PM

    Your post brings up a interesting dilemma of priorities: economic growth or environmental preservation. However in my mind, they go hand in hand! You stated that "The developing countries had taken a step back and were less involved in monitoring because they were focused on economic growth." To me, these countries should take proactive step in mitigating air pollution before it reaches levels such as that in China or parts of the U.S.

    ReplyDelete

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