Air Quality at COP 27: Novel Insights and the Challenges of Urbanisation

At COP27, hosted by Egypt in Sharm El-Sheikh, an expansive technical programme will explore the multifarious challenges posed by the climate crisis, bringing together expertise and state authority from all around the world. As always, the Conference will place an emphasis on the financial, legal and regulatory structures necessary for the restriction of global warming to temperatures less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels in an attempt to build broad-based institutional momentum.    

One of the focusses will be developments in air monitoring as part of the fight against climate change – and there are some highly novel perspectives. For instance, during COP27’s Science Day, which focusses on new measurement and conceptual approaches, there will be a session entitled ‘Dust Particles as Regulators of the Climate System’, which will stress the need for more accurate real-time observations of dust properties and for understanding dust triggering mechanisms, seasonal variabilities, and transport dynamics. The session proposes that such developments would assist in the mitigation of consequences from wind-blown dust, which impacts human health, weather, solar and wind energy systems, aviation, highway safety and urban development. As with all of the measures discussed at COP27, questions of funding, for both the private and public sectors, will be foregrounded. 

Elsewhere, the dangers to air quality posed by urbanisation are discussed – in fact, it appears that much of COP27’s approach to the problem of climate change involves a reconsideration of urban development, perhaps stemming from the fact that Egypt remains a developing economy at a tremendously complicated time to develop. It’s no surprise then to discover a session entitled ‘The Road from COP27 to the WUF12’ on the agenda, as the latter acronym denotes the 12th Session of the World Urban Forum. This event aims to synergise communities engaged in climate and urban action, to coordinate the implementation of multi-level strategies, and to raise the ambitions of Nationally Determined Contributions (formalised programmes for climate action by signatories to the Paris Agreement). It’s clear that COP27 is pushing for a broad-scale change to urban management, which will include lowering targets for ambient air as well as infrastructural changes. 

With regards to the latter, other sessions will focus on rethinking urban mobility and the development of sustainable transport in the interest of actualising not only a carbon-neutral urbanism but one with public health at its core. In these sessions, innovative technologies that are low-carbon, affordable and non-polluting will be showcased, many of which have already been trialled in the Global South.