SO ESKOM, the refineries, the cement industry and one of the platinum miners have been granted a five-year stay of execution over air pollution – despite the fact that many of their activities take place in some of the world’s air pollution hotspots, like the Highveld.
Bad news. But these industries are not all we should be thinking about when it comes to clean air. There is bad stuff in the air all over Johannesburg. And a lot of it is coming from the vehicles that choke our roads – yes, despite the clean-up of emissions.
At the end of February, I was in Nairobi to attend the first India-Africa Dialogue on Air Quality and Mobility, hosted by the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture (MESHA Kenya). And I learnt why the word ‘mobility’ was in that title. Because so much of this is about the cars – you have to focus on, and change, how people move around if you want to clean up the air.