Air Pollution News

Outdoor air pollution has been officially classified as carcinogenic by the cancer arm of the World Health Organization. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said air pollution from…

Fires that sent a choking haze across Singapore and Malaysia in June burned some 1,500 square kilometers in Riau Province and were predominantly concentrated on peatlands, reports the World Resources…

China's top two oil companies have been penalized for missing pollution targets, reports China Central Television (CCTV). The Ministry of Environmental Protection has suspended all refinery projects for China National…

Nearly 500 fires are burning across the Indonesian island of Sumatra, raising fears that choking air pollution could return to Singapore and Malaysia. The fires, set to clear land for…

Last week China announced it was going to spend over a quarter of a trillion dollars ($275 billion) to fight rampant and life-threatening pollution in its urban centers over the…

A high-level meeting to discuss approaches for curbing fires that drive haze over Southeast Asia ended today with a recommendation that governments establish a haze monitoring system that would share…

Greenpeace and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a body that sets criteria for greener palm oil production, are caught up in a row over the origin of fires…

World Growth International, a group that lobbies on behalf of industrial forestry and palm oil companies, is clouding the origin of the fires that triggered 'haze' air pollution alerts across…

Chinese who live north of the Huai River will lose an aggregate 2.5 billion years of life expectancy due to the extensive use of coal burning in the region, concludes…

The Indonesian government will spend 100 billion rupiah — $10 million — on a cloud-seeding scheme to reduce the haze plaguing Sumatra, Singapore, and Malaysia. According to a statement released…

Wind patterns makes annual problem difficult for Singapore to ignore Wind patterns, rather than a sharp increase in fires, is to blame for the record setting air pollution affecting Singapore…

Three firms linked to fires in Sumatra saw their share prices decline since the haze crisis worsened a week ago. Golden Agri-Resources Ltd (SGX:E5H) led the pack with an 8…

In an effort to control peat fires casting a pall of haze over neighboring Singapore and Malaysia, Indonesia is using airplanes to drop water across hotspots in Riau Province on…

Singapore’s Pollutant Standards Index hit the highest level on record Friday as "haze" driven by fires burning across plantations, peatlands, and forest areas continued to rage across Sumatra. The air…

Click to enlarge In a patch of rainforest in northern Sumatra, a 28-year-old in jeans and tall rubber boots snubs out his cigarette and pulls a headlamp over his short…

Independent air samples by locals have yielded "a soup of toxic chemicals" in Mayflower, Arkansas where an Exxon Mobil pipeline burst on March 29th spilling some 5,000 barrels of tar…

In 2004 scientists found that isoprene, a compound produced by trees to protect their leaves from oxidation and temperature fluctuations, plays a role in the production of particulate matter, tiny…

Seven million people died from air pollution in 2010, according to new data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010, published in the medical journal Lancet. The research found…

Comparison of carbon emissions from six leading countries. Click image to enlarge. China will not introduce a carbon tax in 2013, reports Bloomberg. A carbon tax proposed under the country's…

Heavy air pollution, smog and deposition of N in the city centre of Urumqi, China. Credit: Mr. Liu Xuejun Nitrogen deposited on land and water in China increased 60 percent…

Fires in Sumatra detected by NASA's MODIS sensor. Courtesy of Google Earth and NASA. Fires set for land clearing in Indonesia triggered health warnings in Kuala Lumpur and other parts…

Using existing technology to "scrub" carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere is far costlier than capturing emissions directly from the smokestacks of coal-burning power plants, reports a paper published this…

Smoke from plantation fires in Indonesian Borneo and Sumatra are casting a pall over cities in Malaysia, triggering health warnings from officials, reports The Straits Times. A bulletin posted on…

The US Environmental Protection Agency recently issued its plan for establishing greenhouse gas emission restrictions for the nation's biggest polluters under the Clean Air Act. The restrictions are scheduled to…

Oil palm plantation fires in Sumatra are contributing to air pollution in Singapore, according to Indonesia's forestry minister. Indonesian Forestry Minister Zulkilfi Hasan told the Wall Street Journal that fires…

Profits of the world's 3,000 largest companies would be cut by $2.2 trillion per year if they were forced to pay for environmental damage caused by their operations, according to…

The first ever national survey of pollution in China shows a nation that has paid for its economic growth in environmental pollution. Measuring nearly six million sources of pollution in…

Toxic pollutants from China's trash incinerators are spreading far and wide, putting the health of Chinese citizens in China and Americans in the United States at risk, reports the New…

Air quality in Malaysian Borneo is worsening as large numbers of fires rage near the Sarawak-Brunei border, reports the Star newspaper. The Air Pollutant Index (API) reached as high as…