While the global pandemic has been devastating for economies and lives across the world, it has been undeniably good for the environment. As cities across Southeast Asia have shut down, air quality has steadily and uniformly improved – that is in all but one city
Earlier this year, as COVID-19 extended its reach across Southeast Asia, each country began to implement forms of quarantine and lockdown measures to curb the spread of the virus.
The usual hustle and bustle of life, business and traffic, all came to a sudden standstill, and thanks to statistics provided to the Globe by IQAir, we can observe the effect this has had on air quality across major cities in Southeast Asia up until the mid-May.
Key perpetrators of PM10 and PM2.5 emissions such as activity from fossil fuel power plants, wood burnings and emissions from motor vehicles have greatly reduced, paving the way for clear roads and clearer skies.
Currently in their sixth phase of Movement Control Order , in effect since March 18, the previously busy roads of Kuala Lumpur have come to a standstill for over three months.
It comes as little surprise that the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration revealed earlier this year that 76% of PM2.5 in the city’s air is caused by road traffic.
With travel dwindling even before the state of emergency on March 26 and the nationwide curfew on April 3, Bangkok’s air quality has noticeably improved with the significant reduction in traffic.
This article was written by LEE YING SHAN AND ALEXI DEMETRIADI
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