Wood smoke smothers Coyhaique, Chile, in June and July. Yet despite the WHO ranking its air worst in the Americas, residents are reluctant to alter their habits. Wed 17 Jul A tobacco-yellow stain soaks into the table cloth as she sets her mate gourd down to select a fresh log for the fire. With the city lying between two mountainous ridges โ to the west lies the Pacific Ocean and behind the steep rise on the other side of the valley is Argentina โ there is very little wind to sweep the smoke down the valley and away.
Instead, heat inversion compresses the cloud into a dense shield that suffocates the city. A study by the World Health Organization WHO looking at 4, cities in countries worldwide showed Coyhaique to have the worst air quality in the Americas โ and ranked it th unhealthiest in the world. Yasna Seguel says she would not change to a cleaner fuel even if it was cheaper than the logs she currently burns. WHO guidelines stipulate that the concentration of these PM2.
On these emergency days, Coyhaiquinos can only use one heater per home and open fires are banned. Outdoor exercise is also restricted, with school children forced to stay indoors. Despite the hazardous PM2. Seguel has recently applied for a national government grant to insulate her home, which she bought from the state eight years ago but which is inadequately clad for the winter months.
Residents who have a wood fire in their houses can apply to have their stove taken away and destroyed, replaced with a pellet stove by the environment ministry free of charge. Although take-up has been steady since the programme began in , it has not been easy to persuade Coyhaiquinos to give up their firewood for the slightly more expensive but cleaner kerosene.
A number of other programmes and subsidies have also targeted emissions reductions. A scheme to certify the dryness of wood has been renewed for this year, with sellers given a window that closes on 31 July to formalise their businesses and demonstrate that the wood they sell is properly dried. A regional heating system โ the first programme of its kind in Chile โ will take an initial set of 90 homes to be heated and provided with hot water from biomass heaters, with potential for the project to be expanded to 1, homes.
