Bangalore hosts first meeting of C40 Air Quality Network

14 Global Cities Come Together in Bangalore to Develop New Ways to Tackle Air Pollution

The cities of Bangalore and London conducted the first official meeting of the new C40 Air Quality Network, a global effort to tackle air pollution in urban areas across the world. The network, led by Bangalore and London, brings together experts and policymakers from cities around the world to develop solutions to the global threat of toxic air pollution.

The Network builds on previous work led by C40 to pool cities’ influencing powers, like the Clean Bus and Fossil Fuel Free Streets declarations. The Clean Bus Declaration is believed to have significantly reduced the cost for new electric and hybrid buses, enabling cities to renew their fleets and reduce emissions more quickly. In October 2017, 12 C40 cities — London, Paris, Los Angeles, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Quito, Vancouver, Mexico City, Milan, Seattle, Auckland & Cape Town — pledged to procure only zero-emission buses from 2025 and ensure that a major area of their city is zero emission by 2030.

C40 Air Quality Network — 14 Global Cities Come Together in Bangalore to Develop New Ways to Tackle Air Pollution

The 14 participating cities include Bangalore, Chennai, Dar es Salaam, Delhi, Johannesburg, Kolkata, London, Los Angeles, Portland, Quito, Salvador, Tel Aviv and Warsaw.

C40 Cities connects 96 of the world’s greatest cities [sic], which represent over 700 million citizens and a quarter of the global economy, to take bold climate action. Mayors of the C40 cities are committed to delivering on the most ambitious goals of the Paris Agreement at the local level.

“Air pollution is responsible for 7 million premature deaths globally, every year according to the WHO. In 2016, there were over 1.1 million early deaths in India and over 40,000 early deaths in the UK due to fine particulate matter and ozone pollution. This is a global crisis, with 9 out of 10 people worldwide breathing polluted air,” according to a statement released by C40.

Formed when London Mayor Sadiq Khan visited India last year, the Network will allow leaders to share information and ideas and work together to develop plans for how each city will clean up its toxic air.

London

In London, the world’s first Ultra Low Emission Zone is expected to reduce harmful NOX emissions by about 45 percent in the centre of the city from 2020. The city has also launched an air quality monitoring project with local sensors deployed in thousands of locations, making it the most sophisticated monitoring system in the world. As signatories to the C40 Green & Healthy Streets Declaration, London will purchase only zero-emission buses after 2025.

“The hyper local air quality monitoring pilot in London isn’t a London-only model. Cities have been good at capturing information about air quality. In this data driven age people want real time information that is relevant to them. The hyper local program will give us much better granulated data. We will be using mobile monitoring points and also want to introduce a wearable component,” said Elliot Treharne, Air Quality Manager, Greater London Authority.

The hyper local air quality monitoring pilot, that has around 140 sensors at the moment will soon be increased to 200.

“Only by working together and using the knowledge and experience we have as cities tackling this crucial issue can we make real progress in cleaning up our toxic air. We are already working hard in London, rolling out a series of ambitious measures to improve air quality, and I have no doubt that this new network will greatly help our efforts,” said London Deputy Mayor for Environment & Energy, Shirley Rodrigues.

London, in partnership with C40, will also trial a major new £750,000 ($1 million from the CIFF) street-by-street sensor air quality monitoring system which will be used to analyze harmful pollution in up to 1,000 toxic hot spots across the city including schools, hospitals, construction sites and busy roads. The pilot will explore the efficacy of new technologies that provide information about the air people are breathing as they live, work and travel throughout the city. The project will focus on getting citizens directly engaged in combatting air pollution wherever they are.

Results from London’s new air quality sensor monitoring trial will be used to better target policies, in addition to engaging citizens in cleaning up London’s air, and will be shared with Bangalore and other cities in the new C40 Air Quality Network.

“By sharing ideas and information with other global cities through the new C40 Air Quality Network, we can develop new ways to tackle this international health crisis and protect people from breathing in air so filthy it damages their lungs and causes diseases. I have made this issue one of my top priorities, and have already rolled out ambitious plans, including cleaning up the capital’s bus and taxi fleets and introducing the Toxicity Charge for the old polluting vehicles in central London. I’m also bringing forward the introduction of the world’s first Ultra-Low Emission Zone to start in April 2019 and extending it from October 2021. Through this new network, I look forward to learning from other cities and making progress together in our fight against toxic air,” said London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Bangalore

Bangalore has also initiated several actions to improve air quality. There are plans to transition to an all-electric bus fleet by 2030. The city has over 80 fast-charging points for electric vehicles. Fifty percent of Bangalore’s solid waste is source segregated. Its TenderSURE Streets project is intended to prioritize pedestrian movement and saftey, in addition to creating space for cyclists. To promote non-motorized mobility across the city it is introducing a public bicycling scheme.

Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara said that even though Bangalore has not yet figured in the World Health Organisation’s top 20 cities with worst air quality index, the city needs to implement tough measures to improve the city’s air quality.

The city’s population has grown from 3.5 million in 1985 to around 11 million today. Taking into account the increasing air pollution in the cities, the state government has made a special budget allocation Rs 96 crore for setting up 42 continuous air quality monitoring stations in Karnataka. Seven of these will come up in Bangalore (mostly in the eastern regions of the city). Bangalore already has 7 of these stations, that are capable of providing data at 15 minute intervals, in other parts of the city. The city also has 14 manual stations that provide data at an 8 hour interval. The estimated cost of the continuous air quality monitoring station is a little over Rs 2 crore a unit (including a 5 year AMC) and will be procured through a global tender.

“As the Co-Chair of the C40 Cities Network on Air Quality along with Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, I am looking forward to working with other mayors from cities who are part of the Network and learn from them the solutions to air quality challenges they have experienced in the past,” said Mayor of Bangalore, R Sampath Raj. He attributed the rise in air pollution to the liberalization of the Indian economy in the 1990s and the free-flow of automobile loans that led to an unregulated proliferation of vehicles in Bangalore.

“Having been engaged with C40 Cities for a long time, I have experienced, first hand, the value and knowledge they bring to member cities like Bangalore. I look forward to engaging with officials from the 14 visiting cities on air quality monitoring and mitigation and brainstorming on how solutions implemented globally can be contextualized to Bangalore,” said BBMP Commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad. He said that 42 percent of the pollution in Bangalore was created by the 7.2 million vehicles in the city, 20 percent due to traditional road cleaning methods, 14 percent by the construction industry and 7 percent by Diesel generator sets.

C40’s work is made possible by three strategic funders: Bloomberg Philanthropies, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), and Realdania. The current chair of C40 is the Mayor of Paris — Anne Hidalgo and three-term Mayor of New York City — Michael R. Bloomberg serves as President of the Board.

“We need to take bold action now regarding air quality. This is not a problem that governments alone can address. We need to mobilize public and public opinion. Data will help target and prioritize interventions. It mustn’t be just technology for technology sake and data for data sake — How to translate this data to health impact and how to translate that into political agenda,” said Shannon Lawrence, Director of Global Initiatives, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group.