Air pollution more deadly in Africa than malnutrition

WHEN it comes to Africa, the story of pollution and its impact on ordinary people is often the one least told.

Africa is still the continent of hunger, war and dictatorships.

But if you are looking to paint the continent with a single brush, it’s the lack of concern for rising air pollution that may just be the most accurate of the lot. From Nairobi to Addis Ababa, Lusaka to Abidjan, cities are quickly becoming toxic miasmas. The Nigerian city of Onitsha, for example, is considered the world’s most air-polluted. But things may be changing.

Last week, five West African countries – Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ivory Coast – took the decision to ban the importation of diesel with extraordinary high levels of toxins, known as “dirty fuels” from Europe.

Health experts have long argued that high levels of sulphur in fumes increase bronchitis and asthma.

As anyone who has ever been blasted by plumes of diesel fume would attest, it is not just unpleasant, it is poison.

The move in West Africa is an important one and replicates similar efforts made in five east African countries back in 2015.

But the decision in West Africa comes four months after a Swiss NGO, Public Eye, released a report that showed that European companies were mixing “dirty” and “clean fuel” and exporting them to the continent.

Antiquated

In other words, fuel that was neither good enough, nor safe enough for Europe, was being shipped to West Africa because of antiquated regulations in those countries.

The findings might have catalysed action from West Africa, but African leaders have known for years that regulations governing the make-up of fuel in their countries needed to change.

If they were unsure, all they needed to consider were European standards themselves. Europe limits sulphur in diesel to less than 10 parts per million (ppm).

Until the new regulations, the limit of sulphur in fuel in West Africa was 3 000ppm. It would now be limited to 50ppm.

“Today we are taking a huge leap forward – limiting sulphur in fuels… this will result in major air quality benefits in our cities and will allow us to set modern vehicle standards,” said Nigeria’s Environment Minister Amina Mohamed.

Air pollution is linked, of course, to rising industrialisation on the continent. Urbanisation is accelerating; motorisation is among the fastest on Earth. The impacts are real. So much so, that it is estimated that annual deaths from outdoor air pollution rose by 36 percent between 1990 and 2013.

Another report, produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, concluded that air pollution on the continent was responsible for more premature deaths than those resulting from child malnutrition or unsafe water.

This particular report argued that, if left unchecked, air pollution could result in a future health crisis on the continent resonant of those being seen in industrialised giants like India and China.

The study’s author, Rana Roy, said that Africans needed to reconsider the rising individualism of energy consumption.

“It is striking that air pollution costs in Africa are rising in spite of slow industrialisation, and even de-industrialisation in many countries. Should this latter trend successfully be reversed, the air pollution challenge would worsen faster, unless radically new approaches and technologies were put to use,” said Roy.

While the ban on sub-standard European fuel isn’t likely to up-end the miasma of pollution exacerbated by rapid urbanisation, the burning of garbage, open cooking and toxic car fumes are considered among the biggest contributors to the airborne toxicity.

“It is not only dirty fuels that are being dumped in Africa. Used vehicles of all sorts of ages and quality are being exported,” Rob de Jong, from UN Environment, wrote.

“A 16-year-old smoke-belching car is exporting pollution.”

The move to add more regulations to the question of fuel is a good one. Still, it begs the question: Why is it taking so long?

Unfortunately, there is a question of cost with the assumption that “mixed” fuels were cheaper. Experts have refuted this claim.

But given everything that we know about the science, it is rather difficult to walk away feeling that the inaction is another classic case of feeble African leadership tied up most certainly with corruption and European doubles standards.

Why are these exports not banned? And how do European companies reconcile with the unethical practice of observing one set of laws in one place and forgoing then in another – even at the expense of environmental and human rights?

And our leaders: How long will they continue governing our countries like personal fiefdoms at the expense of our collective futures?

Essa is a journalist at Al Jazeera. He is also co-founder of The Daily Vox.