A Breath of Fresh Air: Uruguay Breaks Away From LatAm's Air Pollution

We frequently talk about the growth of cities in Latin America, which has become the world’s most urbanized developing region. While this comes with big upsides such as better job access and potential for infrastructure investments, it also comes with some negatives.

Pollution would be near the top of that list.

Which is why this week we’re taking a look at the air quality of Latin America’s countries, and how one country in particular, Uruguay, has been able to cut its pollution problem by more than half.

As a side-effect of the processes of industrialization and construction that accompany development, Uruguay more or less matched its regional peers until 2011 in terms of the share of its population exposed to unhealthy amounts of air pollution. However, since that year the small South American country of just 3M people has been able to reduce this number from a high of 90% to just above 20% in 2017.

For reference, neighboring Brazil has seen just a 20% drop in this same period, while most of the region struggled to bring down their figures overall. In fact, the only part of Latin America to really compare to Uruguay is Puerto Rico, which saw a drop over this period of about 67%.

What’s to explain this cut in air pollution for Uruguay? Multiple factors may very well be at play, including shifts towards renewable energy, environmental policies & regulations, and improved public transportation.

It’s also worth questioning the metric at its core. We all agree pollution is a problem to fix, but does the World Health Organization set a feasible standard if most of the European Union, for example, isn’t meeting it? What lessons can countries which do, like Portugal and Iceland, impart for the rest of the world?

As Latin America continues to urbanize and develop, pollution – in the air, water, and land itself – will continue to be a problem needing addressing. And we wouldn’t be surprised to see Uruguay leading the way in this fight.