In this episode of In Our Hands, Ramanan Raghavendran speaks with Bjarne Pedersen, Executive Director for Clean Air Asia. They discuss the link between air quality and climate change, the main sources of air pollution in Asian cities, the role of electric vehicles in reducing emissions, the importance of data collection, and the power of partnerships in driving air quality reform.
Time stamps and the full transcript are below. This episode is also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
In Our Hands is a production of Amasia. Follow these links for more about our firm, the Amasia blog, our climate fiction podcast, and Ramanan’s blog.
Show Notes
(02:25) The Connection Between Air Pollution and Climate Change
(04:57) Challenges and Solutions for Air Pollution in Asian Cities
(12:25) The Impact of Data on Air Pollution Management
(17:44) How Partnerships Tackle Complex Issues
(18:28) NGO Initiatives to Combat Pollution and Promote Electric Vehicles
(22:01) Strategies for Galvanizing Public Support for Air Quality Reform
(25:32) Launching a Regional Knowledge Exchange Initiative
Bjarne (00:00): Addressing air pollution actually not only protects public health but also substantially helps in mitigating climate change.
Ramanan (00:10): Welcome to In Our Hands, a podcast about the challenges and opportunities presented by the climate crisis. Each episode features a new thinker at the front lines of the battle to save our planet. Join us as we delve into the complexities of this global challenge and seek actionable ways to build a sustainable future.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the next episode of In Our Hands. Today we're pretty fired up because we have Bjarne Pedersen, who is the executive director for Clean Air Asia. Air pollution and air quality is a subject that we're interested in at Amasia, and he has vast international experience, particularly in environmental issues and sustainable development. He joined the organization in 2013 and has been instrumental in its continuous growth both regionally as well as in China and India. Previously he served as the global director at Consumers International, a leading international consumer advocacy organization. He's worked in Africa, Latin America, and Asia and he has a deep passion for clean air and environmental justice. He holds an MSC in Environmental Studies from Strathclyde University of Scotland. Bjarne, thank you for being on our show.
Bjarne (01:24): Thank you. Thank you indeed for the introduction.
Ramanan (01:27): So we're going to start, as we always do with our biographical question, which is, can you tell us who you are and what you do in your own words?
Bjarne (01:36): I can indeed. Well, I'm originally from Denmark but left that country quite a few years ago. Spent most of my life working across the world for better and cleaner environment. In my early years, I worked quite a lot on sustainable consumption and behavioral change and understanding what consumers can do to create a better environment, including more sustainable lifestyles. But in 2013, I decided to take a jump into more sort of an environmental, pure environmental area focusing on air pollution. Back then I was living in Malaysia, moved to the Philippines with my family, and haven't looked back since then. So that's me in short.
Ramanan (02:25): Got it. And we're going to talk obviously most of the time today about Clean Air Asia and related matters. So Clean Air Asia works on the twin issues of air quality and climate change, which is a connection that we find repeatedly people don't make very well. And can you briefly outline the link between these two issues?
Bjarne (02:47): I can. Somebody once told me I was giving a very complicated explanation, and then he boiled it down to, okay, so what you're trying to say, that they're both problems that come from burning stuff. And to some extent, that's actually the most simple explanation that is actually out there. That air pollution and climate change largely have the same causes. I mean, look at greenhouse gas emissions, many air pollutions, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, also greenhouse gases, air pollutants, like particulate matter can affect the climate I think, quite directly. And black carbon in particular absorbs sunlight and contributes to warming.
So in short, addressing air pollution actually not only protects public health but also substantially helps in mitigating climate change. That is, for me, the intricate link. Some would argue that there's a little bit of differences. For example, dust contributes significantly to PM2.5 for construction sites, that doesn't really influence climate change. But in reality, the same reasons why we have air pollutions are very similar to the same reasons we have climate change.
Ramanan (04:17): And dust is a very broad category that includes a lot of things that you would argue come from, stem from air pollution-related things, which we will, I'm sure, comment on. So you've spent a big chunk of your career in Asia, and every place is different. I'm doing this podcast from California where the air seems relatively clean and at the same time I have spent, Amasia's business is, a lot of it's in Asia.
Ramanan (04:57): So what are the main sources of air pollution in Asian cities and what are the greatest challenges in combating them and do they differ by country within Asia at all?
Bjarne (04:59): That's a very good question. I mean, I’ll try roughly and do a quick run-through of the major sources. We see industrial emissions, rapid industrialization across Asia has led to significant increases of emissions including sulfur dioxides, nitrogen, VOCs, particulate matter, et cetera. More industrial activity often leads to more industrial emissions.
Vehicle emissions, there's an exponential growth of the number of vehicles in Asia, including diesel vehicles which contribute significantly to air pollution through PM, carbon monoxide, nox, et cetera. Then we have biomass burning, often one of the highlights because they lead to big pollution episodes across cities in Asia.
In reality, agricultural activities including burning of crop residues, domestic cooking, biomass fuels, et cetera. And then we have three more. Coal combustion, so many Asian countries rely heavily on coal for electricity. We have construction and dust. Interesting, in a city like Delhi, it's often in the newspapers being very highly impacted by air pollution, and a large proportion is active from rapid expansion of the city building and construction. And then finally we have open burning, waste, including plastic, et cetera, releasing harmful pollutants and particulates. So these six, I would say is the main sources. Now, do they vary?
Ramanan (06:48): Yeah, is India different from the Philippines? Is that different from Malaysia or it's kind of similar?
Bjarne (06:55): It's different. I mean, it varies due to economic development, population density, government policies, et cetera. So there are different levels of how to address the problem, but the sources remains the same. I would say there's differences in China, you'll see rapid industrial growth. We've seen Vietnam, in the Thai economies, there is an appetite for growth on a country level leading to more pollution, not necessarily parallel with the same level of controlling the sources of emission. We do see some that the differences come across in a number of areas. It's around policy implementation.
A lot of countries in Asia have fairly decent policies in place, but it's about enforcing them. And that can be a challenge due to weak governance structures, lack of resources for monitoring enforcement, et cetera. So you can have a brilliant law that regulates industrial emissions. If there is no monitoring and enforcement of that, it is not necessarily that great.
I think one of the areas where we really see differences is lack of capacity. Where we see in more developed Asia, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, China, there is an embedded capacity within those countries because they have worked on air pollution and climate over a number of years. If you look at least developed countries in Asia, that capacity is naturally very low and shouldn't be underestimated down to practical terms. If I go to a city, Baguio City in the Philippines, in reality, there's one person there sitting handling air pollution control, and that person, we can build the capacity, but it's still one person.
Ramanan (08:56): Still one person.
Bjarne (08:56): And that's really a gap where there is a capacity gap. I would then say maybe the final one would be where I see a gap is the ability to find financing for control measures. We have seen in China after the […] that China really through finance, after implementing control measures, we see the same thing again in the countries that I mentioned, South Korea, Singapore, and Japan, Thailand is coming there as well.
But for a lot of countries, access to finance, especially on city levels is not easy to go through. So if you go through the whole science-based air quality management cycle and get to the point where you have the data and you know your sources, and then you have to implement control measures, then suddenly it becomes around, okay, now how do I then start getting people from cars into public transport if the public transport system is not present? And how do I then finance the public transport system? And that is where you see big differences across countries in Asia.
Ramanan (10:10): Got it. And we may have the time to come back to some of that because that obviously makes a huge difference. So let's move to a very topical question, which is electric vehicles. And these are, people tend to think of cars, but in Asia in particular, we should also be equally excited about two and three-wheelers. They're a big part of reducing hazardous fuel emissions in Asian cities. Your observations on how that whole market environment for electric vehicles has evolved over the last 10 years in Asia?
Bjarne (10:47): I think it has. We have seen an increase in policies that facilitate the uptake of electric vehicles, including two-wheelers and three-wheelers. We have seen countries in the lead, and I would point out - China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines - have set quite ambitious targets for shift to electric mobility. We have indeed just finished helping Philippines in drafting the national roadmap towards electric mobility. So there has been progress in some countries on the policy front. There's also been more restrictive policies put in place as in low emission zones, stimulus like government subsidies, tax breaks.
At the same time, we've seen a maturity in the EV technology, particularly around the battery pack. So certainly you see this perfect coming together, not perfect, but at least better than before where you have enabling policies, maturity or better EV technology, better battery packs, slower, no, shorter charging, longer distances, cutting operation costs, leading to a significant uptake in places and a significant level of pilot projects. We are involved in a number of pilot projects as well where this is actually being tested out.
Ramanan (12:23): Got it. Got it. Super helpful. We're going to talk a little bit about data because that is a core area of focus for us at Amasia, but we want to be careful not to turn this into a show about our portfolio companies.
Ramanan (12:25): So I'll frame it this way, what gets measured gets managed. That is a truism that applies to air pollution. Your commentary on data collection and whether it's had a tangible impact on the speed of policy response and decision-making, which is really our main focus here.
Bjarne (13:00): That is a tricky and interesting question. I love data and definitely development of sensor technologies have improved in the last years. There are many more companies being able to offer sensors that can relay real-time pollution data, spatial comprehensive data, and having lower-cost sensors available in the market allows for more area coverage for air quality monitoring. Remote sensing is also coming into play.
And I guess mainly that the biggest shift I've seen now is that when I started 10 years ago, we talked a lot about sensors and now we talk about data acquisition. How do we get the cumulative amount of data that we need in place from a mix of ways of getting those data? Official reference sensors, local sensors, et cetera. So has that then led to faster responses? I would say that locally calibrated sensors have helped cities provide faster and more targeted advisories.
For instance, informed decision member-making in locations where there are no government reference stations, which is in most countries in Asia, besides the more developed ones. Now that doesn't necessarily combat air pollution as a whole stepping back, but at least it provides advice. In Quezon City in Philippines, I know the air quality data from the city's monitoring network was used for suspension, is being used for suspension of school classes during high pollution episodes, and led to campaigns for action from national and local governments.
Now, having said all of that, and that is where my but comes in, I'm afraid more data is needed because you're quite right, what measures get managed. But if we just measure the level of air pollution, that doesn't necessarily make us any more wiser beyond the fact that this is polluted.
The next level is where it becomes even more complicated because that is then, okay, I now have my data. I understand that these are the areas that are polluted and this is the pollutants, but now I need emission inventories to understand where the pollutants come from.
Because, if I don't do that, then I'm just aware that I have air pollution, but I can't really control the sources because I don't understand that I have measured PM2.5 high levels here and I don't actually really know if that is from the industrial park down the road or it's from transport in the vicinity.
So in the longer term, and that is back to whether it has led to more rapid action, I think it has led to a much better understanding of the pollution picture. And I think that there is now a really big appetite for understanding when I measure that pollution and have that data, I need the data next step, which is the data that provides me with where my pollution comes from.
Because at that point, you can then start thinking about, okay, I need to work on transport. I need to work on industrial emissions. Maybe I need to start talking with the city next door because actually the pollution in my city is mainly from that city. And so that is the next step in data. So tremendous progress in data and also a tremendous need for more data and for that data to be crunched.
Ramanan (17:16): So we're going to wander through a couple more questions here. This is all just incredibly interesting, I have to tell you. So you began to touch on it as you were talking about, there's a city here and there could be a city here that is actually the source. Much of the emissions that are problematic in places like Delhi, for example, a bunch of the agricultural sources for emissions are actually surrounding areas, as you know.
Bjarne (17:42): Yes.
Ramanan (17:44): And this requires partnerships. But here I want to ask you about partnerships between or across civil society, business, government, and I think we all want to be inspired because inspiration is key for tackling complex climate issues. In your experiences and travels, where have you seen these forces come together the most powerfully? The civil society, business, government, other actors, where can we point to and say, those guys have done a good job?
Bjarne (18:22): I will take the liberty to talk about ourselves there.
Ramanan (18:26): Please do.
Bjarne (18:28): Because we pride ourselves of being a NGO from the region and we were founded in the region and we work in the region.
So I'll give you a couple of examples. First, I will talk about dust. Dust in Delhi. With the support from 3M, we have been working on helping Manila City and Delhi cleaning up their airs. Now, as part of that in Delhi, we focused on dust and construction. We developed a very first-step symbol toolkit, but a toolkit that actually works, which we are now putting into an accreditation.
This has now been approved by the Delhi government and is being mandated for the construction sector in the city to use as part of mitigating pollution from dust in construction. I was in Delhi around five months ago, and in terms of real impact, it was fascinating visiting a hospital that was building a new wing next door.
Now that is probably the worst place to have local air pollution from dust, and it was fascinating to see the meeting between the Delhi government, the construction company, the hospital, the NGO, which was us, and 3M as a funder coming in and say we started the funding to that. That actually, that cooperation, 3M coming up with the financing, the cooperation between Clean Air Asia, the public sector, in this case Delhi, as well as the construction company and the ones who start the construction, in this case, the hospital, actually resulted in real impact. That will be one example.
I'll take a very different example as well from our backyard in the Philippines. Together with UNEP and a company that is providing electric two and three-wheelers, we partnered up with PHL Post, which is sort of the National Postal Service in the Philippines, and with them, delivered 30 pilot vehicles that they could try out in their postal delivery.
Our theory of chains as well as that of UNEP, the private sector provider, was of course that if you go in and work the postal service, then suddenly you have a massive opportunity for scale-up. We were curbed a little bit in that effort because then the COVID-19 pandemic came and the vehicles were then utilized to deliver relief goods within Manila and to transport frontline health workers.
We're now back working with the postal service and working with UNEP and the providers of the electric vehicles to create the momentum where we, via the partnership between an NGO financing the private sector and a provider of e-vehicles in this case can demonstrate that this can work and we demonstrate it in an area, i.e., the postal service where we know there is a massive potential for scale up.
Ramanan (22:01): Fascinating. That was less of a marketing, that was just substance about what you do. So I think our audience would've loved that. A couple of final questions. What really galvanizes public support for air quality reform? How do you get people behind the agenda?
Bjarne (22:20): In my experience, there's a couple, we'll be one of the few organizations that can run public and has run public messaging campaign in China reaching between 50 and 60, 70 million people there. We apply really a support for the government and positive messaging. A positive messaging only focused on the positive health outcomes we want achieve and action for that. So what does that actually look like? For me, that looks like rather than we focus on blue skies, no, rather than focus on D-day scenarios and pictures of polluted cities, we focus on what we want to achieve, which is clean air and blue skies.
So we changed the narrative around, so it's more about live and breathe and breathe life, which are sort of taglines for some of the campaigns and supporting the government to do that, and the awareness then becomes around creating the enabling environment for that to happen. This is a little bit of a departure from other public awareness campaigns where it's more about, okay, this is doomsday, this is bad and this is how many people die each year, premature death and we all need to do something about it
In air pollution, I think that's often quite difficult because there's not necessarily a distinct thing, an action that an individual can take. So I'm exposed to air pollution, okay, I would like to try maybe travel less by car, but I don't have any public transport, I don't have any possibility to take bikes because I don't have any bike lanes.
So air pollution, I think it's difficult to get that in individual behavioral change at scale. But really the challenge is then to talk about how do we create an enabling environment that encourages local authorities, like I talked about, Quezon City or national governments to move ahead with measures that control air pollution.
Then a final word on this, I then also think that the real, real win around creating that awareness is that it all air, then also becomes a way to talk about climate change. So not only talking about air in itself, but talking about air and health, breathe life and then talking about air, public health, breathe life, but also climate. This also mitigate climate change and suddenly you're talking about a triple win. You might make that explicit, but in reality you are working towards that triple win, which is an amazing place to be in.
Ramanan (25:25): We want triple wins. Actually, we'll start with a single win, but even a triple win would be even more-
Bjarne (25:30): Triple wins will do.
Ramanan (25:32): Okay. Last question, and this has been wonderful. What is on the agenda for Clean Air Asia this year?
Bjarne (25:38): We're going to do something exciting, what we always do, but especially I'm excited about us planning to launch a regional knowledge exchange initiative. We have seen a shift over the years where Asia was often looking outwards to US or Europe for best practices and information how to do things. Now there is a marked and a very marked increase in appetite to learn from best practices within the region.
We see ourselves as an NGO and we know we are the expert facilitator in bringing those countries together because we're a neutral NGO. We don't have any political vested interest. We are the one that can create the bridges of information exchange between China and Indonesia, Vietnam, Mongolia, Thailand is in our portfolio.
So we're looking forward to launching this initiative later in the year and really, really see if we can increase the impact by focusing on solutions that have been tried and tested within the region and where Indonesia is actually really saying, okay, we need to focus on air pollution now, we need urgent action, but maybe we need to learn from what China did or what Japan did on Singapore.
Maybe we need to look towards India as well with their national clean air program. That is one thing. We are then, as I said, going to deep now focus on the nexus for change about climate, air, and health. It's really there where we see the wins.
We need to be able to provide, for instance, health benefits, analysis of pollution, and interventions that integrate impact on evolution and climate change. That sounds very technical, but that is basically showing an analysis that say this is basically a no-brainer.
This is the cost of inaction and this is the benefit of action to the climate, to clean air, to health, and to the climate that we want to go deeper into because I think it's a very technically convincing narrative. And then finally, and that's my own ambition, I want to reach more cities. We're working with a vast number of cities across Asia.
We want to work more. We want to work with more national governments. We've had a lot of interest for us expanding into Central Asia. As I said, we're in South Asia, we're in Southeast Asia, we're in China as well. Central Asia has so far been a space where we haven't really moved into, but we are interested in organizing an NGO increasingly receiving requests from city-level officials and government-level officials in those countries who want to understand what has been done in Asia and how can that experience also help Central Asia. So yes, Uzbekistan might be my next office.
Ramanan (29:00): Well, it's just really interesting because through clarity we have a window into what parts of the world are getting more interested. And I can tell you that Central Asia is rising up the ranks in a that three years ago, I would not have thought Uzbekistan stepping up in the way that I think they want to. All right.
Bjarne (29:20): Fascinating.
Ramanan (29:25): Fair enough. It really is fascinating. In the shoes that you sit in and to a much lesser extent, we sit in through clarity, we have a window into how this issue is more and more and more front and center. And I think it's partially the health issues, I think it's partially developmental issues in general, and it's partially climate change, meaning focus on climate change.
All right, Bjarne, you've been the best. I want to really thank you. I don't think this is the last time we'll want you on our show. We'll have you back and maybe you'll be in Uzbekistan and we'll go from there. Thank you for your time.
Bjarne (30:00): Perfect. Thank you for taking time to actually talk to me. Always happy to try and spread the message and it's been a pleasure talking to you.
Ramanan (30:13): Thank you for listening. Please email us at climate@amasia.vc with any suggestions or ideas and visit inourhands.earth for the full transcript of this podcast and other information.
Ep. 23. Bjarne Pedersen: Clearing the Air: Tackling Air Pollution in Asian Cities