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The seven-week lockdown provided evidence of how pollution can vanish almost overnight benefitting the environment, according to NIWA air quality scientist Dr Ian Longley.
Dr Longley began monitoring air quality in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch when Level 4 restrictions were implemented and says working from home cut emissions with associated benefits for human health.
“Lockdown provided confirmation of how in NZ cities, isolated from each other and international neighbours, and where heavy industry is largely absent, many pollutants can be made to almost disappear overnight,” Dr Longley says.
He estimates that while pollution was down by three-quarters on average, at least a third of Aucklanders reduced their exposure to traffic pollution by 90 percent during lockdown.
“This gain could have been extended to a few hundred thousand more people if diesel trucks and buses had been removed from the city centres.
This is due to the disproportionately high influence diesel vehicles can have on air pollution,” he says.
Unless the way we work and travel changes, it is likely that it will be at least 15-20 years before New Zealanders experience the same levels of clean air as those achieved during lockdown.
Dr Longley says previous analysis showed that ‘business as usual’ improvements in vehicle emissions technology means that we may achieve similar air quality as during lockdown sometime in the late 2030s, “if at all”.
