Air Pollution, Clean Energy and Climate Change. Anilla Cherian
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a grim schematic view of human‐induced global warming.
There has been ample global policy recognition of the costs of climate change being inequitably borne by the global poor. In 2009, a UN Report entitled ‘The Impact of Climate Change on Development Prospects of the Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States’ noted that: ‘Climate change affects all, but it does not affect us equally. Nor do we possess the same capacity to respond to its challenges. As is often the case, the most vulnerable countries ‐ particularly the Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States ‐ find themselves in the worst situation again’. The report went on to call for the 2009 UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen – billed as the Conference to ‘seal the deal’ – to ‘produce tangible commitments for the benefit of the most vulnerable to climate change’ (UN 2009, p. 4). But more than a decade later, as the dust settles from the 2021 UN Glasgow Climate Conference, a comprehensive and effective climate deal focused on addressing the needs of the poorest communities and countries is yet to be sealed. Timperly has provided compelling evidence of the broken $100 billion promise of climate finance that was pledged by richer countries in 2009 to help poorer countries adapt to climate change (2021). Also in 2009, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that for each year that passes the window for action on emissions reductions over a given period becomes narrower. It calculated that each year of delay before moving onto the emissions path consistent with a 2 °C temperature threshold would add approximately $500 billion to the global incremental investment cost of $10.4 trillion for the period 2010–2030 and, more significantly, that a delay of just a few years would likely render that goal completely out of reach (IEA 2009, p. 52).
Figure 1.1 History of global temperature change (IPCC/AR6 SPM).
Source: IPCC (2021) AR6 WGI SPM, p. 7.
In 2016, the World Bank’s report ‘Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change and Poverty’ found that poor people are disproportionately affected by climate impacts and that climate change could push an additional 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030 (World Bank 2016). Meanwhile, the social upheaval and dislocation of millions living at the cross‐roads of extreme poverty and climate vulnerability was documented in ‘Groundswell ‐ Preparing for Internal Climate Migration’, which focused on Sub‐Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America (representing 55% of the developing world’s population). The report found that ‘over 143 million people’ could be forced to migrate as a result of SLR, water and food insecurity. The report’s key message that ‘poorest and most climate vulnerable areas are the hardest hit, and that vulnerable lives have ‘the fewest opportunities to adapt locally or to move away from risk and, when moving, often do so as a last resort’ while those who are ‘even more vulnerable, will be unable to move, trapped in increasingly unviable areas’ remains haunting (emphasis added, Rigaud et al. 2018, p. xxi). The grave impacts of climate change on vulnerable households, cities and countries has also been clearly signalled by a 2018 IPCC Special Report, ‘Global Warming of 1.5°C’:
‘Populations at disproportionately higher risk of adverse consequences with global warming of 1.5°C and beyond include disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, some indigenous peoples, and local communities dependent on agricultural or coastal livelihoods.
Regions at disproportionately higher risk include Arctic ecosystems, dryland regions, small island developing states, and Least Developed Countries.
Poverty and disadvantage are expected to increase in some populations as global warming increases; limiting global warming to 1.5°C, compared with 2°C, could reduce the number of people both exposed to climate‐related risks and susceptible to poverty by up to several hundred million by 2050.
Exposure to multiple and compound climate‐related risks increases between 1.5°C and 2°C of global warming, with greater proportions of people both so exposed and susceptible to poverty in Africa and Asia’ (emphasis added, IPCC/SPM 2018, pp. 9–10).
Close to 20 years after the adoption of the first UNGA resolution, at a 2007 UN High Level Climate Summit, the Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi warned that the UNGA needed ‘new mechanisms’ for tackling the issue of global warming and its repercussions ‘in a more cohesive and concerted manner’, or ‘future generations would pay the price’ (UN News Centre 2007). Today, it is hard to duck around the evidence that current and future generations are indeed paying the price with much heavier morbidity and disease burdens exerted on those who are less able to withstand extreme climatic adversities, and have contributed the least in terms of per capita GHG emissions. Recognition that poorer and more marginalized households, communities, cities and countries will pay the harshest price as a result of their inabilities to withstand climatic impacts has been well documented (African Development Bank 2003; Roberts and Parks 2007; Bullard and Wright 2009).
In dealing with the adversities associated with climate change including dislocation and loss of life, the global policy community has long known that poorer, smaller and more vulnerable communities and countries will be left reeling as they lack resiliency and safety nets that allow for recovery and remediation. The existential threat posed by SLR was forcefully articulated by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore – a country lying no more than 4 metres above the mean sea level. At the 2019 National Day Rally Lee stated: ‘We should treat climate change defences like we treat the Singapore Armed Forces – with utmost seriousness. Work steadily at it, maintain a stable budget year after year … do it over many years and several generations. Both the Singapore Armed Forces and climate change defences are existential for Singapore. These are life and death matters. Everything else must bend at the knee to safeguard the existence of our island nation’. In adapting to climate change, Lee went on to point out that Singapore would borrow inspiration from Dutch ‘Polders’ – reclaimed land enclosed by dykes – that require pumps to remove excess water and are protected by sea‐walls (Chin 2019). In stark contrast to wealthier Singapore, which has marshalled resources to address the problem, coping with extreme climatic events will harshly impact poorer countries and communities especially small island developing states (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs). But, layered upon the challenge of coping with climatic adversities such as SLR, and evidenced in plain sight yet remaining largely unaddressed for millions of lives is the world’s single largest environmental health risk – air pollution.
On 25 March 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) – the world’s primary global organization mandated to respond to public health challenges – reported in a press release for the first time that 7 million people died – one in eight of total global deaths – as a result of air pollution exposure (based on 2012 WHO data). As the WHO put it: ‘This finding more than doubles previous estimates and confirms that air pollution is now the world’s largest single environmental health risk. Reducing air pollution could save millions of lives’ (WHO Media Centre 2014). But the grim reality is that WHO’s guidance on the related risks of climate change and air pollution predated its 2014 warning about air pollution. In 1997, just five years after the adoption of the historic UNFCCC, a WHO report entitled ‘Health and Environment in Sustainable Development’ referenced key environmental threats to human health which included: ‘Water pollution from populated areas, industry and intensive agriculture; urban air pollution from motor cars, coal power stations and industry; climate change; stratospheric ozone depletion and transboundary pollution’ (1997, p. 2). In 2015, the 68th session of the WHO Assembly adopted a resolution entitled ‘Health and Environment: Addressing the health impacts of air pollution’: ‘Noting with deep concern that indoor and outdoor air pollution are both among the leading avoidable causes of disease and death globally, and the world’s largest single environmental health risk. Acknowledging that 4.3 million deaths occur each year from exposure to household (indoor) air pollution and that 3.7 million deaths each year are attributable to ambient (outdoor) air pollution, at a high cost to societies; Aware that exposure to air pollutants, including fine particulate