Clean air reduces plants' CO2 intake

PARIS: Cleaning up skies choked with smog and soot would sharply curtail the capacity of plants to absorb carbon dioxide and blunt global warming, according to a study released yesterday.

Plants soak up a quarter of all the CO2 humans spew into the atmosphere, and thus plays a critical role in keeping climate change in check.

Through photosynthesis, vegetation transforms sunlight, CO2 and water into sugar nutrients. Common sense would suggest that air pollution in the form of microscopic particles that obstruct the Sun's rays - a phenomenon called "global dimming" - would hamper this process, but the new study shows the opposite is true.