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CANADA, 14 August 2002 -- If you haven't already heard of the Asian Brown Cloud, you will, and likely often, in the environmental debate over the coming months and years. It's one of the most visible signs yet of the environmental ramifications of the economic development of the Third World. The disturbing phenomenon, identified by a new United Nations study, is a three-kilometre-deep blanket of air pollution from Afghanistan in the west to Sri Lanka in the south to Bangladesh in the east. This "growing cocktail of soot, particles, aerosols and other pollutants," as UN Environmental Program chief Klaus Toepfer calls it, is disrupting rainfall and wind patterns, damaging crops and contributing to premature deaths. The authors believe similar or even worse smog clouds cover China and Southeast Asia. The Asian Brown Cloud is the byproduct of the transformation-in-progress in Asia from agrarianism to an industrialized system. The odd mix of sources contributing to the cloud shows a region grappling with the pitfalls of modernization while still saddled with its less advanced past: a sharp increase in the burning of fossil fuels for cars, plants and power stations; forest fires in most cases set deliberately to clear land; and the widespread use of inefficient stoves that burn cheap but dirty fuels such as wood and dung. The air-pollution problems of Asia today aren't all that different from those suffered by the West during its rapid industrialization in the 19th century. At the height of the Industrial Revolution, London was notorious for thick, coal-laden fogs that reduced visibility to near zero. By the end of the century, London received 40 per cent less sunshine than surrounding rural areas, and had twice as many thunderstorms as 150 years earlier. However, London's air quality staged a remarkable recovery in the 20th century, as its postindustrial economy diversified, technologies improved and the population became more affluent and better educated. The city's air is now cleaner than at any other time in the past 400 years.

The rest of the industrialized world has seen similar improvement. This provides grounds for optimism that the Asian Brown Cloud won't intensify unabated as the region's economies continue to develop. Indeed, environmental researchers have suggested that as a country's economy develops, its impact on the environment peaks at mid-development, then declines as the country matures into a postindustrial economy. This hypothesis is known as the Economic Kuznets Curve, which most scientists acknowledge has substantial merit when it comes to air pollution. This is not to say the problem will take care of itself. London still suffered from serious smog into the early 1950s, when a particularly nasty bout of "pea-souper" fog prompted political leaders to enact tough air-pollution laws. But the shift from a developing to a developed economy removes much of the strain that rapid growth places on the environment, and sets the stage for tougher antipollution laws by creating a population both enlightened enough to see the value in a cleaner environment and affluent enough to afford it. While there is no reason to think Asia's economies won't achieve this same evolution, the Asian Brown Cloud does pose a problem of scale. Its immense size, coupled with the huge and growing population that is contributing to it, raises the question of whether the pollution issue could threaten to overtake economic development in the region before it reaches its full potential. Some enlightened leadership within the Asian community on emissions limits could help sustain an economic development pattern that will lead to a healthier environment.

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