Urgent action needed to cut pollution or more people will die, WHO warns

Urgent action must be taken to curb the rising number of deaths caused by air pollution, the director of public health and environment at the World Health Organization has said.

Dr Maria Neira said mayors could either continue to preside over congested, traffic-filled cities and see more people die or accelerate the transition to green transport systems to significantly reduce mortality from air pollution.

“How much are you prepared to have on your shoulders the responsibility for those deaths?” she asked of world mayors, in an interview with The Independent at Cop27.

Dr Neira said the World Health Organization can measure the positive impact cutting air pollution can have on the number of lives lost.

“We can tell you how many lives you’re saving,” she said. “It’s up to you to be very ambitious in deciding how many people you want to save.”

Air pollution kills an estimated seven million people worldwide every year, while 99 per cent of the world breathes air that exceeds WHO guideline limits, with developing countries suffering from the highest exposures.

“The combustion of fossil fuels is literally, literally killing us,” she said.

Dr Neira mentioned the case of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah, the first person in the UK to have air pollution acknowledged as a cause of their death, and praised the work that her mother, Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, has done campaigning for Britain to toughen up limits on air pollution.

“That’s what we need,” she said, adding that a huge silver sculpture of lungs that hug the stage in the World Health Organisation’s Pavilion at Cop27 was dedicated to Ella.

Dr Neira said at Cop27 that she was calling on world leaders to come up with an ambitious commitment to transition to clean renewable resources of energy “now,” as well as evidence that the world was keeping its commitment to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Finance needs to be channelled to adapt healthcare facilities and frontline health workers to a changing climate and more epidemiological surveillance is needed of diseases that are already emerging due to global heating.

In Asia, for example, there is a risk that the prevalence of dengue fever and malaria could increase by almost 40 per cent due to global heating, she said. In Pakistan, during the recent extreme flooding, approximately 10 per cent of all health facilities were washed away, leaving millions without access to care.

More broadly, she said there needs to be more emphasis on preventing health problems rather than just treating them. Twenty-five per cent of global mortality is linked to environmental risk factors, such as a lack of safe water, sanitation, or air pollution, but only 3 per cent of resources go to prevention, she said.

The money doesn’t have to come from health budgets, but the decisions the energy sector and the government are taking, she said.

“If the ministry of energy in your country is taking the decision to accelerate the transition to renewables he’s already doing health, and paying for health … same with the ministry of agriculture, the ministry of environment,” she said.

Dr Neira said she was “fully convinced” that protecting human health is the argument that will change the speed and the level of ambition being exhibited by nations when tackling global heating. Environmental destruction and climate change pose the biggest threat to human health, as air pollution and heat stress exacerbate health conditions, while deforestation, the trade of wildlife and “aggressive” agricultural practices can cause epidemics, such the coronavirus, she added.

If global heating continues at pace, air pollution, heatwaves, waterborne diseases, vector-borne diseases, and malnutrition will get worse and will mean the hospitals will need to prepare to increase their capacity and to cope with a “public health disaster,” she said. The strides forward in world health in recent years also risk being lost, she said, including progress in curbing malnutrition.

However, if the world acts to reduce global heating and stop destroying ecosystems, the health benefits are “enormous”, she added. Ending deforestation, for example, could limit the potential for new epidemics to break out, and accelerating the transition to clean sources of energy would reduce air pollution and save lives, she said.

People living in very polluted cities is “unacceptable”, she added.

Dr Neira said the WHO had been warning that environmental risk factors impact people’s health for two decades, pointing out that 20 years ago the organization published a report named “Our Planet Our Health” and last year put out a study on the same subject.

“It’s somehow frustrating,” she said.

But she remained optimistic: “The more we make sure that everyone understands the connection between climate change and pollution and health, the more they will put pressure on the politicians and the more the health argument will accelerate action.”