Air Pollution, Clean Energy and Climate Change. Anilla Cherian

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Air Pollution, Clean Energy and Climate Change - Anilla Cherian


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poorly ventilated spaces. The stoves used often lead to significant health impacts, through the generation of pollutants that expose women and children to air pollution corresponding to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day’ (emphasis added, UNDP 2002, p. 30). In 2009, a joint UNDP & WHO study pointed out that the number of people estimated to die every year due to household air pollution (HAP) from poorly combusted biomass fuels was anticipated to rise by 2030 to around 1.5 billion (WHO/UNDP 2009). The health consequences of using biomass for cooking, lighting and heating in poor households were found to be staggering. In reviewing the lack of access to clean energy in developing countries, the joint report noted that 44% of those who die each year from HAP are children, while women account for 60% of all adult deaths (2009).

Particulate matter (PM): WHO air quality guideline values* Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) 10 μg/m3 annual mean25 μg/m3 24‐hour meanCoarse particulate matter (PM10)20 μg/m3 annual mean50 μg/m3 24‐hour mean

      * According to the WHO, PM pollutants such as nitrates and black carbon penetrate deep into the lungs and into the cardiovascular system, posing the greatest risks to human health. PM2.5 was identified as one of the principal air pollutants directly linked with causing strokes, ischaemic heart disease; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer.

      Source: WHO (2005) Air Quality Guidelines.

      A decade later, in 2015, in response to air pollution being identified as a major global public health threat, the 194 WHO member states adopted the first World Health Assembly resolution to ‘address the adverse health effects of air pollution’. Member states agreed on a Road Map aimed at providing an enhanced global response to the adverse health effects of air pollution. Amongst the main elements of this road map were the monitoring and reporting of air pollution and enhanced systems, structures and processes for monitoring and reporting health trends associated with air pollution (WHO 2015). The WHO’s Secretariat resolution was grounded in a report which was stark and succinct as to the extensive and yet inequitable morbidity burden of air pollution:

       ‘Air pollution is one of the main avoidable causes of disease and death globally. About 4.3 million deaths each year, most in developing countries, are associated with exposure to household (indoor) air pollution. A further 3.7 million deaths a year are attributed to ambient (outdoor) air pollution.

       Even at relatively low levels air pollution poses risks to health, and because of the large number of people exposed it causes significant morbidity and mortality in all countries. However, although all populations are affected by air pollution, the distribution and burden of consequent ill‐health are inequitable. The poor and disempowered, including slum dwellers and those living near busy roads or industrial sites, are often exposed to high levels of ambient air pollution, levels that appear to be worsening in many cities. Women and children in households that have to use polluting fuels and technologies for basic cooking, heating and lighting bear the brunt of exposure to indoor air pollution.

       Most air pollutants are emitted as by‐products of human activity, including heat and electricity production, energy‐inefficient transport systems and poor urban development, industry, and burning waste and brush or forests’ (emphasis added, WHO 2015, pp. 1–2).

Schematic illustration of main sources of GHG emissions and urban ambient air pollution.

      Source: WHO (2018, p. 17).

      The disconcerting human development reality is that the layering of climatic adversities, poverty, and marginalization, combined with the health impacts of exposure to air pollution, and the lack of access to non‐polluting energy sources puts millions of lives at stake. There is irrefutable evidence that climate change cannot be ameliorated without massive reductions of CO2 and other GHGs. But, a central argument advanced is that the global community as a whole has not done enough to address the linkages between climate change and air pollution and, in particular, that global policy silos on clean energy access and climate change have relegated the curbing on SLCPs associated with toxic levels of PM pollution to the margins. As evidenced by their name, and unlike CO2 emissions which are longer lived in the atmosphere, SLCPs are pollutants that persist for a short duration/time span in the atmosphere. But, SLCPs have been found to be extremely potent in terms of their global warming potential compared to longer lasting GHGs such as CO2. Reducing SLCPs like black carbon (BC), methane (CH4 – which is also a recognized GHG) and tropospheric ozone (O3) offers multiple benefits – short‐term climate mitigation and public health.


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