For many people today, humanity’s biggest moral failure is that we are destroying our environment. Nations that took part in the Industrial Revolution (those that conquered poverty long before others) get the lion’s share of the blame.

High on the list of their crimes is air pollution. Soot- and smog-filled skies are an affront to the eyes — and the lungs. They’re among the most obvious forms of pollution.

So, what’s happening around the world with regard to air pollution?

If you’re a Millennial in the developed West, you’ve probably never experienced health-threatening air pollution. But your parents probably grew up with heavy smog, and your grandparents with soot-filled skies.

Many of us in the developing world suffer those now. Air pollution is a constant threat to our health and even life. My country has some of the world’s worst air quality. I spent a year in the world’s most polluted capital, Delhi, and the world’s most polluted city, Gurgaon (a suburb of Delhi). In all, 22 of the top 30 most polluted cities are in India. But similar conditions prevail in major cities around the developing world.

Why is air quality in developing countries so bad when developed economies have more cars and industries?

Industrialization and Pollution

Almost all developed countries once had pollution levels similar to those in today’s developing nations. They, too, battled with air pollution early in industrialization. But as they became wealthier, they were able to tackle and conquer air pollution. They generated more electricity, fabricated more steel, built and drove more cars and trucks. Yet their skies became cleaner and purer.

What this looks like historically is a roller coaster ride — but one with only one ascent and one descent.

In early industrialization, pollution increases. It takes a toll on human health and life. But industrial activity also brings more and better food, clothing, shelter, health care, transportation and other benefits. And those benefits far outweigh the harms brought by the pollution.

How do we know that? Because even while pollution increases, so does life expectancy. Death rates fall, at all ages. And that’s the bottom-line measure of environmental quality.

That’s not all that happens.

The high pollution rates of early industrialization come from low-tech, inexpensive industrial processes. That’s what makes the processes affordable at that stage. When a society reaches various levels of prosperity, it can afford to develop and use processes that produce more goods with less pollution.

Environmental scholars refer to this phenomenon as the Environmental Kuznets Curve. As E. Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation explains, it’s a bell-shaped curve that portrays how pollution increases during early industrialization, peaks, and then falls. Soon the now-developed economies can afford not only to reduce or even eliminate ongoing pollution but also to restore polluted resources. They wind up cleaner, healthier, safer than before they industrialized.

This is why much of North America and Europe enjoy the world’s best air quality — far better than it was 20, 50, 100 and more years ago.

No longer do people heat their homes with wood or coal in fireplaces. They use electricity, or burn natural gas in furnaces that emit essentially nothing but carbon dioxide — an odorless, colorless, nontoxic gas that makes plants grow better.

No longer do coal-fired generating plants belch soot and toxic fumes. They’re either replaced by natural gas plants, or fitted with scrubbers that remove the pollution and emit only water vapor and carbon dioxide.

As a result, overall air pollution levels around the world have improved despite heavy pollution in developing countries.

Getting Better, Not Worse!

But what about those developing countries? You’ve probably seen videos of pedestrians in Beijing or Delhi wearing gas masks, and cars with headlights on at noon, under a sky darkened by pollution.

Did you know that the air in New York, London, and Berlin was equally bad a century ago? What happened there is happening today in developing countries. And though it started later, it’s passing more quickly. Why? Because developing countries can apply, even early in development, off-the-shelf abatement technologies developed over decades, at great expense, in developed countries.

This is why air quality is projected to continue improving around the world. Increased use of less-polluting technologies in industry and transportation means cleaner air.

Data from the past three decades bear this out. The global death rate from air pollution stood at 115 per 100,000 in 1990. In 2017, it was 66.

Deaths from indoor air pollution used to exceed those from outdoor air pollution. Indoor air pollution killed an estimated 2.7 million people in 1990. In 2017, 1.64 million. And that number will continue to decline. Heating and cooking with natural gas and electricity instead of wood and dried dung has prolonged millions of lives.

Judging from the available evidence, air quality in developing countries will continue to improve. Causalities will continue to drop.

There is no reason to believe things are getting worse. There is hope for a brighter future.

 

Vijay Jayaraj (M.Sc., Environmental Science, University of East Anglia, England), Research Associate for Developing Countries for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, lives in Bangalore, India.