Air Quality and Ambience
Climate Action is the new buzzword around the globe. Be it a major developed economy or a minor underdeveloped one, every country is plagued by this common question of what they must do to mitigate the adverse impact of climate change. The real question the world is asking about consequences of climate crisis is not ‘if’, but ‘when’. Once the climate crisis crosses its threshold, humanity will fail to restore the natural order and will be destined for an inevitable doom. Which also signifies that not all is lost yet.
In these alarming times of climate crisis, countries around the world are required to invest in climate innovations, implement policies for mitigating the negative consequences of climate change and provide infrastructure for private players to contribute to climate action. However, it must not come as a surprise that not all countries perform at the magnitude that is expected of them, based on their demographics, economic conditions, workforce availability, and many other factors. This also affects the livability of these nations and impacts the quality of life. Such differences among countries in the space of sustainability not only impact the happiness index of the countries but also impede the cause of climate action because of disproportionate investments made for solving climate problems. The need of the hour is to have incisive visibility into how the countries worldwide are performing on the commitment they have for sustaining life on the planet and their environmental conditions.
It has to be noted that a country may have higher pollution levels because of the industrialization programs, but it may also have adequate and efficient systems to counter the environmental consequences of these initiatives. On the corollary, a country with lower industrialization levels may also be a major contributor to the climate crisis, due to mismanagement of various aspects that affect the biosphere.
The Stitch Index provides a visual narrative of how the countries are performing against each other and where the bottlenecks lie in our struggle to mitigate an impending climate catastrophe. The following graph highlights the contribution magnitude of countries to the climate crisis. Stitch has arrived at the index based on four parameters from publicly available World Bank datasets, which comprise:
- CO2 emissions in 2018
- Particulate matter in the air in 2018
- Methane emissions in 2018
- Motality rate due to air pollution related illness in 2016
The data for each countries have been averaged over all the cities where air monitoring station are installed.
China, Russian Federation, India, the United States and Brazil emerge as the top 5 contributors, which highlight the need for interventions in the large developing/developed economies of the world. It is high time for policymakers in the BRICS nations and the United States to draft policies to contain their emissions, while the international community needs to maintain constructive pressure on these nations to rein in their emissions.
Appendix 1: Dataset of countries with their air quality parameters (free to download).