What we do

We use state-of-the-art atmospheric models to figure out the sources of air pollution, and the impact of specific sources of pollution on air quality. How much would air quality improve if a coal power plant retired, or new vehicle emission standards were introduced?

How many asthma attacks, deaths and hospital visits can be linked to air pollution in different places? What are the economic costs? Global health and population databases combined with air quality data and health risk models enable us to answer these questions. Combined with atmospheric modeling, we can assess the health impacts of specific sources of emissions, and the health costs or benefits of policies and investment projects.

We track progress towards air quality targets using data from air pollution monitoring stations, low cost monitors and satellites to determine whether air quality is getting better or worse. Combining air quality time series with weather data enables us to disentangle the effect of changing weather conditions and the effect of changes in emissions and policies.

Air quality improvements depend on reducing pollutant emissions from different sources, ranging from power generation and industry to transport, households and agriculture. We track power and industrial sector trends to understand pressures on air quality.

Where did an air pollution episode come from? We use back-trajectory modeling to make sense of the pollution sources contributing to smog episodes, in real time.

Eye-in-the-sky technology enables us to pinpoint emissions sources and track air quality and emissions trends in areas where reliable emissions statistics and air quality monitoring are not available – that’s pretty much the whole world.

Coal pollution and its health impacts travel far beyond borders, and a full coal phase-out in the EU would bring enormous benefits for all citizens across the continent, shows a report from the WWF European Policy Office, Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe and Sandbag.

This report analyses the impacts of the proposed 1,320MW Maitree coal-fired power plant at Rampa, that would be among the largest point sources of air pollution in all of Bangladesh. Avoiding emissions from large industrial sources such as coal-fired power plants will prevent unnecessary public health impacts in Bangladesh and neighboring countries.

This paper applies available modeling tools implementable inGIS software to provide an estimate of the health damages and economic costs that would be avoided by requiring Eskom to comply fully with the national air emission standards.

This article based on an assessment of various sources of Chinese government and financial sector data, I explore the drivers of these trends and the outlook for the next year or two.

This analysis based on data from various ministries responsible for electricity, coal, oil, gas and foreign trade, shows that emissions in India increased by 2% in the first eight months of the year, a lower rate than any annual increase since 2001.