International Climate Policy and Its Effects on Local and Regional Air Pollution

This article argues that the world has only one atmosphere and that the adverse impact of emitted pollutants often cannot be confined to a single location or region. Any air pollutant with an atmospheric lifetime of at least three to four days, may be transported across a continent also it would take a week or two to get it across an ocean, a month or two to be moved around the hemisphere, and a year or two to be delivered anywhere on the earth. As population and living standards are growing in many parts of the world; often, they result in increasing pollutant emissions. The results indicate the impact of air pollutants on crop yields and the viability of forests, grasslands, and other natural ecosystems. Many studies have unveiled the interplay between air pollution levels and climate change on scales ranging from regional to global. All of these concerns have led to increasing international efforts to recognize and measure the long-range transport of pollutants. They have also spurred attempts to predict how expected changes in population, production of food, energy, goods and climate will impact future pollutant transport and air quality.