Climate Change, Air Pollution, and the Environment: The Health Argument

Abstract

There are no aspects of climate and environmental change that are more critical than those that affect health and well-being, and none are more urgent than those that affect the most vulnerable. Air pollution and climate change fit both these categories, and now rank among our greatest contemporary threats to human health. This is what we know: 92% of the global population breathes air pollution levels that are unsafe. More than seven million lives are lost to indoor and ambient air pollution every year. The major sources of air pollution are the combustion of fossil fuels, the burning of biomass, and agriculture. Global health and welfare losses from air pollution in 2013 were valued at about US $5110 billion, or almost 7% of gross domestic product. However, there is no policy realm in the world that regularly takes into consideration the potential costs and benefits to public health of all decisions, even those that directly produce health-influencing externalities. Health should be central to discussions around drivers of environmental degradation, such as production methods that pollute, deleterious consumption, distribution patterns and disruption of ecosystems. Moreover, the attainment of health should be promoted as an explicit aim, rather than an afterthought, of decisions in key sectors such as energy, transport, technology, water and sanitation, and urban planning. The health sector must show leadership and work with other sectors to assume its obligations in shaping a healthy and sustainable future. The effects of human actions on the environment are an ethical and human rights issue; they will be felt by future generations and have the most severe impact on the most economically, demographically, and geographically vulnerable populations. At this point in history, no decision-maker can claim to be ignorant of the adverse health consequences of environmental degradation. Together, we have a major responsibility to drive the transformation needed to make radical changes in policies and behaviors-while there is still time.