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ACTIONS ON AIR QUALITY
ANNEX A – METHODOLOGICAL NOTES
Methodological details of survey development and administration, as well as the approach taken to developing the global and regional reports This report provides an update on trends in national air quality policy action since 2016 as a response to UNEA resolution 3/8, which requests in paragraph 7(j) that UNEP regularly “undertake an assessment of progress being made by countries to adopt and implement key actions that can significantly improve air quality.” As a global thematic report on the key actions taken by governments to improve air quality, this report uses globally comparable data from the
Table 1.
survey results of a detailed survey questionnaire that was sent to countries. National policy targets are used to gauge progress in priority action areas.
Determining priority action areas The first step in developing this report was to determine priority action areas that aim to address the most common air quality challenges. Similar to the 2016 report, challenges were defined as major driving forces that alter atmospheric composition and exert environmental pressures on air quality. Five key sources of air pollution were therefore identified as the most important drivers of air pollution: (i) industrial point source emissions (including thermal power generation facilities); (ii) transport; (iii) waste; (iv) residential, and; (v) agriculture.
Coverage of key sources in 2016 (baseline) and 2020 assessment
2016 baseline
2021 report
Rationale
Industrial activities
Industrial (including power generation) point source emissions
Remains largely the same
Road transport
Road transport
Remains largely the same
Open waste burning (municipal and agricultural)
Solid waste management
Terminology changed following expert review of questionnaire in order to focus on a clearly defined stream of waste as opposed to a broad focus on “other forms of waste” (see next section for process)
Indoor air pollution (from cooking and heating)
Residential (household air pollution)
Broadened to include clean energy initiatives for household cooking and heating
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Agriculture
Introduced due to growing consensus on the sector’s contribution to air pollution (ammonia-induced particulate matter and methane – the main precursor of tropospheric ozone)
