'We need access to more recent air quality data'

DH speaks to Chris Hasenkopf, CEO and co-founder of OpenAQ.org

Chris Hasenkopf is the CEO and co-founder of OpenAQ.org. It is the world's first open, real-time and historical air quality platform, aggregating government-measured and research-grade data that is entirely open-source. OpenAQ is a community of scientists, developers, journalists and everyone in between who are fighting air inequality. DH's Lijo Abraham spoke to Hasenkopf about the rising air pollution affecting cities around the world and in particular, Bengaluru.

Over 80% of the world’s cities have pollution levels exceeding WHO’s guidelines for safety. Where does Bangalore stand? How worried should we be?

From the WHO 2016 Ambient Air Pollution Database, Bangalore has an average yearly PM2.5 level, which is about six times above the WHO recommended healthy guidelines. That's not great. But a significant problem in even understanding where Bangalore stands, in terms of air quality, is finding timely, more relevant data. That 2016 database relies on 2012 air quality data for Bangalore. Access to more recent air quality data is a necessary condition for more accurately understanding what the current state of Bengaluru air is and how effective air quality mitigation policies are.

Since 2010, particulate matter has gone up in Bengaluru by over 57%, but the concern seems confined to green warriors in the city. How can the urgency of the situation be communicated to the larger public?

I've seen air quality issues take off as a political and major public issue in a few ways elsewhere. In China, and specifically Beijing, the conversation seemed to change when real-time or recent data become incorporated in apps that interpreted the data into health outcomes and suggested personal actions to protect health. The public in China also became galvanised after "Under the Dome" went viral, which was a documentary created by a Chinese journalist, Chai Jin. It explained the impact of air pollution on health and specifically discussed it from a Chinese context and through her own worries about her daughter's health. It seems like, in places where there already is some air quality data to show there is a problem, the next step in activating the public is turning that technical data and the existing giant -- and often intimidating -- body of academic public health research into something the public can understand, emotionally connect with, and that resonates with their own lives and their families."

WHO norms prescribe one air pollution monitoring station for every 5 sq km but we have very few in Bengaluru. Can citizen initiatives or non-governmental efforts make up for this and how?

Citizens' initiatives and non-governmental efforts can be incredibly impactful in the air quality space. One thing that holds them back in the low-cost sensing space is the lack of standards. This leaves work relying on low-cost sensors open to questions about data reliability, so it pays to be thoughtful about what impact you're seeking to achieve before deploying and if a low-cost sensor is the most effective tool for the job. You can have a thousand sensors in a tiny area but if they're all putting out data you can't trust, it's not helpful and can confuse the situation. That said, low-cost sensors can shed light in areas where there just simply isn't any data -- and help build momentum for more reliable monitoring devices deployed over sustained periods of time.

I will also add, just because there is more data -- even of the highest quality by governments or non-governmental groups -- it doesn't necessarily mean there will be more action in actually reducing pollution, especially if all that data generated isn't in the public where various actors in the community from diverse sectors can do far more collectively than any individual group could alone.

With the issues of calibration, lack of standards and sensor self-certification, some experts question the quality of data in India. How can we fix this problem? What technology developments can improve data collection?

I believe a lot of the progress in the low-cost sensor space will be less about technological leaps and more about figuring out ways for groups to cooperate and develop low-cost sensor standards -- both quality and even at a more base level, data-sharing formats. You could see several actors eventually helping to organise this space better: governments, international NGOs, or leading manufacturers -- potentially the public even demanding these things before they feel comfortable relying on the data from these sensors to make decisions that affect their health. I think it will take finding the right incentivising levers to bring the relevant parties to get on the same wavelength.

What should be our top priority? What can we learn from other cities that are effectively tackling pollution?

I think the top priority ends up being a mix of what's causing substantial pollution and what source is the most addressable. For instance, to give a fictional example, if 90% of a city's pollution is coming from 1,000 disaggregated sources and 10% is from one single easy-to-fix source, it's probably most sensible to tackle that single source first. There's a lot to be said for successfully tackling a smaller but significant source to fuel public will and momentum toward tackling other perhaps bigger and thornier sources.

There is a point of view in developing countries that this is a price to pay for development. What are the lessons we can learn from developed countries? How can we avoid the same mistakes?

I think a lot of countries that saw massive economic development in the past were operating without the same information that is available today, in terms of the real-life health consequences of air pollution to their populations. As a result, in the US, where I live, we didn't realise several decades ago that economic growth came at the price of millions who died prematurely and even more who were sick because of air pollution. These were true externalities that we were too ignorant to capture. Economic development across the world today, anywhere, is benefitted by our better scientific knowledge, so hopefully, we are all empowered to make better economic decisions, let alone ones that simply allow us to be healthy enough to enjoy a booming economy - or just be alive. As it stands now, a recent World Bank study estimates US$5 trillion in welfare losses to the global economy, due to premature deaths due to air pollution.

There is also an expectation that developed countries should share their know-how in tackling such problems. Also, it is true developed countries ship their problem overseas - for e.g, sending their waste to Asia and Africa for processing. Do you think we should also stand up like China and say no to waste, in spite of the economic benefits we may gain?

Air pollution doesn't abide by a country's boundaries, both in terms of how it can physically travel from one place to another and also how, in solving pollution in one country, it simply exports it to another. The solution is not simple to implement, but at the end of the day, it will take account of the true cost of air pollution into exported goods. And that will take a tonne of political will from multiple countries banding together to charge countries importing their goods their true cost.

I think the biggest mistake that has been made in fighting pollution in many places is viewing the problem on too short of a timescale and solvable by one single solution or entity. There is usually no single quick fix that can be implemented by one organization - even the government. There is no magic piece of technology, no single public awareness campaign, no one government policy, no one media exposé, and no one scientific finding that will fix the problem. In most communities, it takes all of those pieces generated from diverse sectors working in concert together over long periods of time - often on the scale of decades - to solve air pollution.

Bengaluru will host the C40 Air Quality Network conference next year. What are the key issues that the conference should delve into?

So many air pollution solutions aren't identical from one place to another but they do often rhyme. Meanwhile, a lot of cities and countries are forced to reinvent the wheel because they can't connect in a detailed and sustained enough manner with their counterparts elsewhere. The C40 Air Quality Network conference seems like a great opportunity for cities to share lessons learned at a granular level of what has worked and what hasn't in various cities battling air pollution.