Page 42 - Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

An integrated approach to climate change and air pollution is needed, therefore, to reduce the risks
of applying climate change measures with significant negative impacts on air quality. 115

Recent studies have aimed to quantify the costs associated with negative health outcomes resulting
directly from traffic congestion in urban areas. A 2010 Harvard University-led paper that studied the
effects of small particulate matter (PM ) concluded: ‘The public health impacts of congestion may be
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significant enough in magnitude, at least in some urban areas, to be considered in future evaluations
of the benefits of policies to mitigate congestion.’ 116

Another study conducted jointly by the University of Texas and University of Michigan in 2013 focused
on the effects of nitrogen dioxide on public health. It found that while NO exposures and associated
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health risks were not proportional to traffic volumes, traffic congestion and additional traffic volumes
can significantly increase exposures and risks. 117

The Global Burden of Diseases Study 2015, which was conducted over a 25-year period, echoed
these concerns by concluding: ‘Ambient air pollution contributed substantially to the global burden
of disease in 2015, which increased over the past 25 years, due to the population ageing, changes
in non-communicable disease (NCD) rates, and increasing air pollution in low-income and middle-
income countries (LMICs).’
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There is significant potential to realize substantial greenhouse gas and air pollution reductions
by utilizing AI for route and traffic optimization (to reduce idling times, to introduce local traffic
restrictions or to enable better active traffic flows), for facilitation of autonomous and ride-sharing
services (to decrease the overall number of vehicles on roads) and for increasing driver compliance
with environmental regulations, as seen in the case of Moscow, Russian Federation, in Box 5, below.

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