Too often confused in public debate, air pollution and climate change are two very distinct phenomena:

• Air pollution is caused by the presence of air pollutants, gases and particles that have a direct and local impact on human health.
• Greenhouse gases are gases responsible for global warming, but which do not have direct impacts on human health, but overall on global warming.

Common sources

Airparif facilitates the joint consideration of air, climate and energy by carrying out an inventory of emissions common by municipality, both for air pollutants and for the main greenhouse gases and energy consumption. This inventory allows us to know their evolution over time, their geographical distribution and the contributions of different sources.

• Geographically, we observe that greenhouse gas emissions, like those of air pollutants, are concentrated in the heart of the Île-de-France region. 
• The main sources of greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions in Île-de-France are the same sectors of activity: road transport and residential and tertiary heating.

This inventory of emissions is a valuable tool for identifying the sources of pollutants, the actions that would be most effective in reducing them, and testing reduction scenarios taking into account both issues.
 

Strong interactions

Climate change influences air pollution, and vice versa: climate change leads to more forest fires and the desertification of entire areas, which notably increases emissions of fine particles into the air. 

It increases the number and intensity of periods of extreme heat, which facilitates the formation of low-altitude ozone, which is one of the rare gases to be both an air pollutant and a greenhouse gas. .

Conversely, certain air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxides and volatile organic compounds, which cause the formation of ozone, also aggravate climate change. Others, like particles, have more ambivalent consequences: some worsen climate change, while others partially mask it.

Show interactions between climate change and air pollution.

Ozone and airborne particles therefore have a strong impact on climate change, which is widely documented in the 2022 IPCC report on the physical bases of climate change.

Show the contribution of air pollution to climate change.

The need to act taking into account the two environmental crises

These interactions illustrate the need for joint policies to combat both air pollutant emissions and greenhouse gas emissions.

Most measures that have a positive effect on air pollution also have a positive effect on climate change, and vice versa: all actions that reduce the burning of oil, gas and coal, whether through sobriety , energy efficiency or the electrification of uses, present strong co-benefits, as well as the limitation of methane emissions and the reduction in the use of agricultural fertilizers. 

Conversely, if wood heating can limit life cycle greenhouse gas emissions under certain forest management conditions, wood combustion emits a large quantity of fine particles into the air. The same goes for the use of biofuels and biogas, whose emissions of air pollutants are still poorly known, but potentially at risk. Depollution systems leaving factories or thermal vehicles massively reduce emissions of pollutants into the air, but have no impact on greenhouse gas emissions - or even increase energy consumption.

View the diagram of joint benefits for air quality and climate.