Trans-boundary air pollution is changing the atmospheric process in the South Asia, melting the Himalaya glaciers and affecting the ecosystems, agriculture and food security in the South Asian countries, including Bangladesh, says a scientist, reports UNB. “During dry season, haze covers a large area of the region due to growing air pollution….winter fog has been increased over the Indo-Gangetic Plains in recent decades,” Arnico K Panday, senior atmospheric scientist of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), told a workshop. ICIMOD, a Kathmandu-based regional knowledge development and learning centre, organised the five-day ‘Media Training Workshop: Air Pollution, its sources and impacts, and mitigation options’ at its headquarters here, which concluded on Friday evening. Panday said the growing winter fog caused by air pollution across the region affects aviation, railways, agriculture, monsoon and the countries’ economies as well. He said greenhouse gas-induced warming, black carbon, and changes in precipitation due to aerosol effects are contributing to the melting of the Himalayan cryosphere. The atmospheric scientist said the increase in air pollution is also posing adverse impacts on human health, plantation, visibility and income of people across the Hindu Kush Himalayas – Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Myanmar and China. Stressing the need for taking a comprehensive step involving all those countries to cut air pollution, Arnico said air pollution could be mitigated through using emissions control technology, switching to cleaner technology and changing activity patterns in daily life. But, he said, taking right policies is a must to create the right conditions aiming to mitigate air pollution in the countries. In his power-point presentation during the workshop, former vice chancellor of Patan Medical Academy of Nepal Arjun Karki said air pollution largely contributes to chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, asthma, throat and lungs cancer, pulmonary TB, low birth weight, cataracts, hypertension and heart attack. The air pollutions contained both ultra-fine and fine particles can reach deep parts of lungs, so it is dangerous to human health, he added. About the economic cost of air pollution Arjun Karki said the cost of air pollution to the world’s most advanced economies plus India and China is estimated to be US$ 3.5 trillion per year in lives lost and ill health. Citing the UNEP 2014 data, the physician said over 3.5 million people die each year from outdoor air pollution. “Between 2005 and 2010, the death rate rose by 4 percent worldwide while by 5 percent in China and by 12 percent in India,” he added.
