Study identifies atmospheric and economic drivers of global air pollution
Carbon monoxide emissions from industrial production have serious consequences for human health and are a strong indicator of overall air pollution levels. Many countries aim to reduce their emissions, but they cannot control air flows originating in other regions. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign looks at global flows of air pollution and how they relate to economic activity in the global supply chain.
“Our study is unique in combining atmospheric transport of air pollution with supply chain analysis as it tells us where the pollution is coming from and who is ultimately responsible for it,” said lead author Sandy Dall’erba, professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics (ACE) and director of the Center for Climate, Regional, Environmental and Trade Economics (CREATE), both part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at Illinois.
“There is a direct link between a country’s level of production and how much air pollution is emitted. However, production may be driven by demand from consumers in other countries. We use supply chain analysis to quantify the links between production and consumption. This helps us to understand how production in one country is linked to domestic and foreign demand,” he added.
The researchers traced the movement of pollutants through the atmosphere to understand the flow of emissions, using simulations developed by Nicole Riemer, professor in the Department of Climate, Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Illinois; for analytical purposes, they divided the world into five sections: the United States, Europe, China, South Korea, and the rest of the world. South Korea is located downwind of China, and it serves as an example of how a small country can be affected by pollution from a much larger upwind neighbor.
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