Global warming, driven primarily by emissions of greenhouse gases, has been accelerating for the past 15 years, leading to record-breaking surface temperatures. Over the same period, countries in East Asia have made strong efforts to clean up air pollution, which is important for public health. The largest air pollution clean-up has been made in China, where ambient air pollution is responsible for about 1 million deaths a year.

But air pollution has also helped cool the climate. Sulfate aerosols, arising from burning fossil fuels, can shade the Earth’s surface from sunlight. Air pollution has therefore inadvertently held in check some greenhouse gas driven warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessed that in 2021, aerosols cooled the global surface by 0.4 ºC. This, however, did not take into account the fact that since the early 2010s, China, then a major emitter of key constituents of air pollution, has implemented strict policies to improve air quality.

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