Asian Smog Cloud Threatens Millions, Says U.N.

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Asian Smog Cloud Threatens Millions, Says U.N.

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Asian Smog Cloud Threatens Millions, Says U.N.

 

August 11, 2002

By REUTERS

 

LONDON (Reuters) - A two-mile-thick cloud of pollution

shrouding southern Asia is threatening the lives of

millions of people in the region and could have an impact

much further afield, according to a U.N.-sponsored study.

 

It said the cloud, a toxic cocktail of ash, acids, aerosols

and other particles, was damaging agriculture and changing

rainfall patterns across the region which stretches from

Afghanistan to Sri Lanka.

 

The lives of millions of people were at risk from drought

and flooding as rainfall patterns were radically altered,

with dire implications for economic growth and health.

 

``We have an early warning. We have clear information and

we already have some impact. But we need much, much more

information,'' U.N Environment Program chief Klaus Toepfer

told a news conference.

 

``There are also global implications not least because a

pollution parcel like this, which stretches three km high,

can travel half way round the globe in a week.''

 

Toepfer said the cloud was the result of forest fires, the

burning of agricultural wastes, dramatic increases in the

burning of fossil fuels in vehicles, industries and power

stations and emissions from millions of inefficient

cookers.

 

He said the U.N.'s preliminary report into what it dubbed

the ``Asian Brown Cloud'' was a timely reminder to the

upcoming Earth Summit in Johannesburg that action, not

words, was vital to the future of the planet.

 

``The huge pollution problem emerging in Asia encapsulates

the threats and challenges that the summit needs to

urgently address,'' he said.

 

``We have the initial findings and the technological and

financial resources available. Let's now develop the

science and find the political and moral will to achieve

this for the sake of Asia, for the sake of the world,'' he

added.

 

RESPIRATORY DISEASE RISK

 

Professor Victor Ramanathan, one of the more than 200

scientists involved in the study, said the cloud was

cutting the amount of solar energy hitting the earth's

surface beneath it by up to 15 percent.

 

``We had expected a drop in sunlight hitting the earth and

sea, but not one of this magnitude,'' he said.

 

At the same time the cloud's heat-absorbing properties were

warming the lower atmosphere considerably, and the

combination was altering the winter monsoon, leading to a

sharp reduction in rainfall over parts of north-western

Asia and a corresponding rise in rainfall over the eastern

coast of Asia.

 

The report calculated that the cloud -- 80 percent of which

was man-made -- could cut rainfall over northwest Pakistan,

Afghanistan, western China and western central Asia by up

to 40 percent.

 

Apart from drastically altering rainfall patterns, the

cloud was also making the rain acid, damaging crops and

trees, and threatening hundreds of thousands of people with

respiratory disease.

 

Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen -- one of the first scientists

to identify the causes of the hole in the ozone layer and

also involved in the U.N. report -- said up to two million

people in India alone were dying each year from atmospheric

pollution.

 

``If present trends as they are continue, then we have a

very serious problem,'' he said.

 

The report called for special monitoring stations to be set

up watch the behavior of the cloud and its impact on people

and the environment.

 

``The concern is that the regional and global impacts of

the haze are set to intensify over the next 30 years as the

population of the Asian region rises to an estimated five

billion people,'' the report said.

 

A spokeswoman for environmental group Friends of the Earth

said urgent action was needed.

 

``Actions must include phasing out fossil fuels and

replacing them with clean, green, renewable energy and

tough laws to protect the world's forests,'' she said.

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