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AEROSOL IMPACTS

Dirty air offsets inequality

Nature Climate Change volume 10, pages 185–186 (2020)Cite this article

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Atmospheric aerosols have probably masked a significant portion of the greenhouse-gas-induced warming so far. Research now shows that this also may have masked some of the world’s increasing economic inequality.

The term ‘air pollution’ may evoke images of acid rain, smokestacks or blackened lungs, but what about economic inequality? Clean air and sustainable development are closely interlinked, and although air pollution is not formulated as an explicit target, it is central to several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, such as good health, zero hunger and healthy ecosystems. Air pollution also disproportionately affects poor populations in middle- and low-income countries, hence contributing negatively to global equality1. However, the latter may not always be the case. Writing in Nature Climate Change, Yixuan Zheng and co-authors2 suggest that the climate impact of aerosols, a key component of air pollution, has had an overlooked effect on national economies. They estimate that surface cooling from anthropogenic aerosols has caused regionally opposing economic impacts that may have partially offset increases in global economic inequality.

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Fig. 1: Anthropogenic aerosols in the climate system.

References

  1. ISSC, IDS & UNESCO. World Social Science Report 2016, Challenging Inequalities: Pathways to a Just World (UNESCO, 2016).

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  1. CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Oslo, Norway

    Marianne T. Lund

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  1. Marianne T. Lund
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Correspondence to Marianne T. Lund.

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Lund, M.T. Dirty air offsets inequality. Nat. Clim. Chang. 10, 185–186 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0714-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0714-3

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