In the 1960s, scientists across Europe began to notice that the rain was unusually acidic, denuding forests and poisoning lakes. They traced the problem to the sulphur-dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. And not just their own – for example, sulphur emissions from the UK were causing the forests in Scandinavia to suffer.
By 1979, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) had established a landmark Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution to reduce the toxic emissions. It’s been a slow-moving agreement – it took four years just to be ratified – but over the last 40 years sulphur-dioxide emissions have dramatically fallen. And the agreement’s journey is far from over. With a new taskforce on air pollution set to meet for the first time in October, the lessons from Europe can show the way to a global convention on air pollution.
All pollution can be transboundary. Whether it’s plastic particles in the ocean or nitrogen run-off from farming, pollution has no respect for sovereign borders. Even Australia, with its continental mass and vast surrounding oceans, contributed to global air pollution as a result of the 2019–20 'Black Summer' bushfire emergency.
