Air emissions in the ‘Europe–Central Asia’ region: a combined environment and human health approach reflecting sustainability

ABSTRACT

Sustainability has components from the environmental, social and economic sections. In the present study, it is suggested to bring in indicators from different sectors and apply them simultaneously without any form of aggregation. Hence, we apply the carbon dioxide emission, the air concentration of small particles as well as the under-five mortality rate as well-known indicators from the environmental and health/social sectors. The study includes 20 countries from the Europe–Central Asia group as well as the Europe–Central Asia region as a whole and the Euro zone. An overall evaluation based on an average ranking of the countries and regions shows that countries like Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan apparently are the least sustainable countries while Georgia appears as the most sustainable. The study further points out that the carbon dioxide emission apparently is the most important indicator among the three included. The so-called ‘peculiar’ countries are verified, showing that Kazakhstan has an unexpectedly high carbon dioxide emission whereas the under-five mortality rate is unexpectedly high in Tajikistan. In the final part of the study, the gross national income per capita is brought into play and the implications of poverty are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• CO₂ emission
• PM_2.5 concentration
• under-five mortality rate
• sustainability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.