The burning of residues and other wastes from agricultural lands and processes lead to pollutant emissions that contribute to air pollution and climate change. In different parts of Asia, seasonal crop residue burning is identified as a major contributor of air pollution. Agricultural burning continues to raise environmental, health, and economic concerns at the sectoral, local, national, and regional levels due to the scale of its impacts and the need for cross-cutting solutions. Sustainably addressing this issue requires the careful balance of applying air quality management approaches that must be integrated with agricultural practices, community behavior, and availability of resources for implementing solutions.

The South - South Knowledge Sharing on Air Quality and Carbon Neutrality project financed by the Clean Energy Financing Partnership managed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) aims to provide an avenue to learn best practices on improving air quality and reducing carbon emissions. In this knowledge sharing event, the aim is to discuss impacts of agricultural burning and what solutions has worked at the sectoral to regional level.

Objective:

This event brought together all interested stakeholders to discuss opportunities to address agricultural waste burning. The webinar gave an overview of the extent of the air quality, health, climate, and transboundary impacts of agricultural burning. More importantly, effective solutions on addressing the issue will be discussed by regional experts, with emphasis on the needs and considerations to ensure success and sustainability of solutions