Assessing and Projecting Long-Term Trends in Global Environmental Air Quality

Air quality and environmental issues have gained attention from countries and organizations worldwide over the past several decades. In recent years, carbon peak and carbon neutrality have been mentioned at many international conferences and meetings aimed at reducing and controlling environmental challenges. This study focuses on trend analysis and expectations for the duration of control for environmental air quality (EAQ) indicators, assesses the current EAQ conditions across global countries, and presents reasonable suggestions for environmental control. The study begins by examining the annual, per capita, and per square meter (m2) carbon dioxide (CO2) emission peak and standardizations, where carbon standardization is a replacement for carbon neutrality. A similar quantitative methodology was employed to assess classical air quality factors such as sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). The findings suggest that the average control year length (ACYL) of NOx is longer than that of SO2, and the ACYL of SO2 is, in turn, longer than that of CO2. From an energy structure perspective, regressions results indicate that biofuel and wind power contribute to improvements in EAQ, while coal, oil, and gas power exert negative impacts. Moreover, a long-term EAQ model utilizing an adjusted max–min normalization method is proposed to integrate various EAQ indicators. This study also presents an EAQ ranking for global countries and recommends countries with critical EAQ challenges. The results demonstrate that it is plausible to control EAQ factors at an excellent level with advances in control technologies and effective measures by government, industries, and individuals.