By Vanessa Balintec  

The United States and Canada have a long history of working together when it comes to tackling shared environmental concerns. But with bigger issues such as climate change on the horizon, what does the future hold when it comes to the two countries working together to address it?

According to Toronto-based York University environmental studies professor Mark Winfield, building upon existing agreements is key to making sure new problems are being dealt with, but the lack of political will on both sides hinders collective action. 

“They’re effective, and they do set minimum standards both parties need to meet, so we can’t really go backwards into it,” says Winfield. “But we’ve not really moved forwards very effectively, and that remains the big problem.”

Policy greatly influences environmental laws and regulation

Throughout his first three years of presidency, the Trump administration had reversed dozens of environmental laws that regulate air and water quality, weakened greenhouse gas emissions, cut back protected areas, and limited wildlife protections. Many of these reversals have been fought in court by state attorneys, but according to The State Energy & Environmental Impact Center, implementation of these some of these new laws is projected to lead to thousands of premature deaths each year due to poor air quality. 

Meanwhile, Canada has long since been dealing with environmental rollbacks that originate as far back as 2012. As part of Progressive Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper’s administration, laws were changed that made it harder for public consultation to take place during environmental reviews, and regulate fisheries, lakes and rivers, while more power was given to stakeholders and companies to circumvent reviews and strict regulation.

Does tackling environmental problems mean more cross-border agreements?

Although collaboration between countries is important, experts say that agreements between countries alone aren’t going to be what incites change. Cross-border collaborations may be of lower importance as time goes on, instead prioritizing domestic policy and enforcement.

“We have this kind of globalist narrative that says we have to collaborate and problems are global, and only by working together can we solve them,” says Mathis Wagernagel, founder and president of Global Footprint Network. “But what that really means is that people think [they] can’t do anything about it, so globalizing problems actually makes it ineffective.”

Air pollution can easily cross any boundary, but the United States and Canada address this through an agreement between the countries and each country’s own regulations.

by Lily Burris

What is air pollution?

Air pollution is, simply, things that are in the air that aren’t wanted, says Sebastian Eastham, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Usually, we’ll refer to things like air quality cause it kind of points out more of a metric that you can talk about and how air quality has been degraded by anthropogenic or human activity,” Eastham says.

Air quality is measured with a variety of tools to determine how many harmful pollutants can be found in a given sample, putting focus on how human emissions cause air pollution.

Eastham says who is downwind of whom, what the temperature is, the amount of precipitation an area has and what is being put into the air can affect what exactly the air pollution is in an area.

How is it managed between the two countries?

The United States and Canada signed the Air Quality Agreement in 1991, addressing acid rain related pollution, and it was expanded in 2000 to address ozone emissions and smog issues. Ambient air quality standards in both nations set the acceptable or manageable amount of prominent pollutants allowed in the air.

The National Ambient Air Quality Standards in the United States monitor carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, particle pollution and sulfur dioxide.  The Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards monitor fine particulate matter, ozone, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. 

Concerns are raised on both sides of the border on whether these agreements are enough to provide clean air for citizens. Figures show air pollution emissions are decreasing, but people are still at risk. In the United States alone, about 45% of the population live in an area with unhealthy ozone or particle pollution levels.

What is the impact of air pollution?

Air quality is of significant concern to countries, as poor air quality can lead to health implications and premature death. 

“The really simple explanation is that particulate matter in particular, if it’s large and has a diameter of more than 2.5 microns, it’s less likely to harm you, it can’t penetrate deep into the lungs,” says Eastham. “Particulate matter that has less than 2.5 microns diameter is more likely to penetrate deep into the lungs, and we correlate that successfully with greater mortality outcomes, and this is one of the things that’s been done over and over again.”

Many studies show a correlation between poor air quality and premature death, specifically relating to particulate matter and premature death.

“All around the mortality rate has increased by tens or hundreds of thousands a year every year because of pollution,” says Eastham. “So at some level, it’s best to sort of take a broad look and say anything we can do to bring that down is good.”