Reducing air pollution speeding up global warming climate crisis

Global warming has continued to intensify, with 2024 confirmed as the warmest year on record. [Courtesy]

Cleaning up the air we breathe may be a win for public health, but it also speeds up global warming. That's according to a recent study published in Communications Earth and Environment Journal, which linked the recent clean-up of air pollution in East Asia to the acceleration of the climate crisis.

Co-author Robert Allen, climatology professor at the University of California, Riverside, said: "When something like the anomalous, record-breaking warmth of 2023 and 2024 happens, climate scientists start to wonder if there's a factor we're missing. This study was our effort to figure out what that might be."