Imag­ine being dri­ven in a car along a busy high­way, com­plete­ly unaware of an invis­i­ble dan­ger. You begin to feel inex­plic­a­bly drowsy despite being ful­ly rest­ed, and your con­cen­tra­tion slips with­out appar­ent rea­son. Unknown to you, your dri­ver is expe­ri­enc­ing the same trou­bling symp­toms. As a pas­sen­ger, you might fall asleep, but what hap­pens if your dri­ver does the same? Could the invis­i­ble air we breathe silent­ly impact your health and safety?

At Green Africa Foun­da­tion, we recent­ly ini­ti­at­ed an obser­va­tion­al assess­ment using a glob­al­ly rec­og­nized air qual­i­ty sen­sor, the Aranet4, made in Latvia, to mon­i­tor real-time car­bon diox­ide (CO₂) lev­els, tem­per­a­ture, and humid­i­ty across var­i­ous regions in Kenya. What we found is deeply con­cern­ing: alarm­ing­ly high CO₂ con­cen­tra­tions accu­mu­late rapid­ly in enclosed envi­ron­ments, such as homes, offices, and par­tic­u­lar­ly vehi­cles, even when the air con­di­tion­ing is run­ning, often caus­ing headaches, dizzi­ness, fatigue, and reduced cog­ni­tive abilities.

CO₂ occurs nat­u­ral­ly from human res­pi­ra­tion. Typ­i­cal­ly harm­less out­doors, this gas quick­ly becomes haz­ardous in poor­ly ven­ti­lat­ed spaces. Accord­ing to the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) and the Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Heat­ing, Refrig­er­at­ing and Air-Con­di­tion­ing Engi­neers (ASHRAE), CO₂ con­cen­tra­tions between 1,000 and 2,000 parts per mil­lion (ppm) notice­ably impair cog­ni­tive per­for­mance. Above 2,000 ppm, indi­vid­u­als com­mon­ly expe­ri­ence headaches, dizzi­ness, and pro­found drowsiness.

Our pre­lim­i­nary field stud­ies across Malin­di, Nairo­bi, Kitui, Eldoret, and Naivasha revealed con­sis­tent­ly dan­ger­ous CO₂ lev­els inside vehi­cles. For instance, in Nairo­bi, while indoor CO₂ ranged between 500 and 990 ppm, in-car lev­els rapid­ly esca­lat­ed to between 1,900 and 4,300 ppm, regard­less of vehi­cle type or air con­di­tion­ing usage. In Malin­di, out­door CO₂ ranged from 400 to 480 ppm, yet inside vehi­cles, lev­els exceed­ed 2,000 ppm with­in min­utes of clos­ing the win­dows, drop­ping sig­nif­i­cant­ly upon ventilation.

This sce­nario wors­ens in cars where the air con­di­tion­ing sys­tem is con­tin­u­ous­ly set to recir­cu­la­tion mode, as fresh air intake is min­i­mized, lead­ing to rapid CO₂ accu­mu­la­tion. Even new­er vehi­cles, typ­i­cal­ly con­sid­ered safer, do not nec­es­sar­i­ly pro­tect against high CO₂ lev­els if inad­e­quate ven­ti­la­tion or air con­di­tion­ing sys­tems remain unserviced.

This was, of course, a lim­it­ed study which might not paint the exact pic­ture across the coun­try, but the poten­tial impli­ca­tions for road safe­ty are severe. Kenyan roads con­tin­ue to wit­ness trag­ic acci­dents, often attrib­uted to fatigue and loss of con­cen­tra­tion. Research glob­al­ly links ele­vat­ed CO₂ lev­els to sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tions in dri­ver alert­ness and responsiveness.

South Korea offers a com­mend­able glob­al exam­ple. In 2021, the coun­try intro­duced strin­gent vehi­cle ven­ti­la­tion reg­u­la­tions which man­date reg­u­lar checks and ade­quate fresh air intake stan­dards, there­by dras­ti­cal­ly reduc­ing CO₂-induced dri­ving impair­ments. Kenya can learn much from this proac­tive approach.

Address­ing this hid­den haz­ard requires imme­di­ate atten­tion and col­lec­tive action. First­ly, indi­vid­u­als should reg­u­lar­ly ven­ti­late vehi­cles and indoor spaces, lim­it pro­longed use of recir­cu­la­tion mode in vehi­cle air con­di­tion­ing sys­tems, and con­sid­er installing ver­i­fied, afford­able, portable CO₂ mon­i­tors as a pre­ven­tive mea­sure. Ini­tia­tives like “Plant Your Age,” where every­one is encour­aged to plant trees equiv­a­lent to their age, offer mean­ing­ful per­son­al actions toward nat­u­ral­ly reduc­ing CO₂ and replen­ish­ing oxygen.

Sec­ond­ly, pol­i­cy­mak­ers must urgent­ly facil­i­tate the Nation­al Trans­port and Safe­ty Author­i­ty (NTSA) to inte­grate air qual­i­ty stan­dards into nation­al road safe­ty guide­lines. They should enforce manda­to­ry pub­lic ven­ti­la­tion pro­to­cols, incen­tivize local pro­duc­tion or impor­ta­tion of afford­able air qual­i­ty sen­sors, and enhance nation­al build­ing codes to imple­ment strict con­trols for CO₂ lev­els, tem­per­a­ture, and humidity.

Third­ly, researchers should enhance Green Africa Foundation’s ini­tial assess­ments with thor­ough stud­ies across Kenya to deter­mine the full impact of indoor CO₂ lev­els, includ­ing acci­dents and cog­ni­tive impairments.

Who knows if the con­stant bick­er­ing and con­fu­sion in our polit­i­cal space part­ly stem from pro­longed expo­sure to high CO₂ con­cen­tra­tions in vehi­cles? A detailed sci­en­tif­ic explo­ration may offer intrigu­ing insights. Rec­og­niz­ing and address­ing this invis­i­ble yet pre­ventable threat is cru­cial for our imme­di­ate well-being and future pros­per­i­ty. Now is the time to act deci­sive­ly, ensur­ing we breathe eas­i­er, live smarter, and thrive togeth­er. Think green, act green!