Air Pollution in the Former German Democratic Republic — Consequences for Political Economy and Health Control

The environment in the GDR was considerably damaged due to the structure of its source of energy which is unique in the world. The country covered 70 per cent of its primary energy consumption by the extraction of 320 million tonnes of raw lignite; oil and natural gas amounting to 12 and 10 per cent, respectively. As a result, since the oil crisis in the early seventies there has been a continuous increase in sulphur dioxide and dust emissions in the GDR, which included emissions from households and residential areas because of the strategy of replacing coke and gas by lignite.