What’s new: At the Urban 20 Mayors (U20) Summit, Environmental Defense Fund announced the expansion of Air Tracker—its cutting-edge air quality monitoring tool—to Rio de Janeiro today. Air Tracker is an interactive, real-time mapping tool that uses trusted scientific models to track air pollution sources accurately. It combines air pollution and weather forecasting to reveal not only which pollutants are in the air but also where they originate. Learn more about Air Tracker in this short explainer video.

Actions to lower air pollution in Brazil’s major cities can bring significant health benefits. According to the World Health Organization, around 61,000 Brazilians die prematurely each year due to current air pollution levels. Air Tracker will provide valuable insights to national and city officials as they implement Brazil’s new air quality law, enacted earlier this year, which aims to help 216 million Brazilians breathe cleaner air by 2030. Air Tracker is free and publicly available and can therefore also empower residents to identify polluters in their communities and flag them for regulators.

What they’re saying: Officials at the national and state levels expressed enthusiasm about the potential of Air Tracker to assist them in their efforts to cut pollution in urban and rural areas alike. “We are excited to incorporate the advanced capabilities of the Air Tracker into our pollution management toolkit,” said Rafael Barbosa Campos, Air Quality manager of the Rio de Janeiro State Environment Agency. “This technology will allow us to identify sources more quickly and accurately, in addition to strengthening collaboration with communities to reduce emissions at the source. It will help ensure cleaner air and better health for our residents.”

“The implementation of Air Tracker in Brazilian cities is a major step, directly benefiting millions of residents and setting a model for improving urban air quality across Brazil and beyond,” added Brazil’s National Secretary of Urban Environment, Adalberto Maluf. “Nationally, it also brings new potential to monitor rural areas, tracking wildfire smoke and pollution sources in critical regions like the Amazon.”

How does Air Tracker work? When users drop a pin on Air Tracker’s map, it visualizes data on some key measures:

• Local air pollution levels (currently PM2.5 and PM10)
• Key areas where sources are likely located
• The path pollution travels, based on wind speed and direction

Air Tracker provides both real-time and historical data, allowing users to look back up to 6 months to understand long-term trends or the impact of specific polluting events such as wildfires, intentional burning or industrial accidents. Its unified data view provides metrics for informed decision-making, while its capabilities allow for quick responses to pollution spikes.

With support from the Clean Air Fund and the Breathe Cities Program, Air Tracker empowers city and national governments by helping them identify pollution hotspots, enforce regulations in a more targeted way and engage communities in safeguarding public health and the climate. Today’s launch in Rio de Janeiro expands Air Tracker internationally for the first time—an expansion that is expected to continue with the addition of São Paulo in the coming weeks.

What’s next? Environmental Defense Fund is currently partnering with officials in Rio de Janeiro to provide training on Air Tracker’s capabilities and how to best integrate the tool to support their monitoring and enforcement systems. Key partners include:

• The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change of Brazil
• Rio de Janeiro’s Instituto Estadual de Ambiente (INEA)
• The Secretaria Municipal de Ambiente da Cidade (SMAC)
• The State of São Paulo Environmental Company (CETESB)
• Civil society organizations and academia.

EDF’s Senior Policy Director of Global Clean Air, Sergio Sánchez, expressed gratitude to city leaders. “We’re excited to partner with officials and communities in Brazil to launch Air Tracker, empowering residents to understand their local air quality and hold polluters accountable. This is a key step toward scaling clean air solutions, strengthening regulations and advancing public health for all.”