Open Philanthropy, June 7, 2021
Our understanding is that poor air quality contributes significantly to negative health outcomes for the more than 1.8 billion people in the region, and that reducing the levels of particulate matter present in the air could save millions of lives.
There is definite potential for overlap between climate and air quality spending, as many interventions that reduce greenhouse gasses tend to reduce PM
2.5emissions as well (e. g., limiting reliance on coal for electricity generation). But the two goals can also come apart (e. g., flue-gas desulphurization units on coal plants help improve air quality for health, but as far as we know do not mitigate climate impacts). Overall, we do not think that the presence of significant climate funders mitigates the need for more focused work to improve air quality from a health perspective.