The International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, held annually on 7 September, aims to raise awareness and mobilize global action to address air pollution, which United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently called a “global emergency.”
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Airborne contaminants are the biggest direct environmental health risks of our time, with 99 per cent of the world’s population breathing unsafe air. Exposure to air pollution significantly increases the risk of strokes, heart and lung disease, cancer and other ailments, causing more than 6.7 million premature deaths a year.
On the fourth annual Clean Air Day, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) sat down with Martina Otto, the head of the secretariat of the UNEP-convened Climate and Clean Air Coalition, to find out how the world can counter the fallout from air pollution.
Why is the International Day for Clean Air for blue skies important?
Martina Otto (MO): Almost everyone breathes polluted air. But we are not all breathing the same air – differences in air pollution levels often match other inequalities. Exposure at any level can have health implications that impair quality of life and come with costs for the individual, our societies and our economies.
Just as reducing air pollution is key to improving human health, it is also key to tackling the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste, as well as helping us achieve several Sustainable Development Goals.
Clean Air Day raises awareness of the serious impacts of air pollution and brings together researchers, businesses, governments and individuals to address these issues.
What is the significance of this year’s theme of Together For Clean Air?
MO: We have the solutions to tackle the air pollution problem but to implement them at scale, we all need to come together, work across sector silos and across levels of jurisdiction. While air pollution significantly impacts the areas near its source, it can also travel over thousands of kilometres in the atmosphere.
We have no influence over how the wind blows but we can work together to identify upstream solutions to challenges in regulation and enforcement. For example, investment can turn agricultural residue into valuable resources or energy, thereby reducing open burning. As an intrinsically transboundary problem, addressing air pollution in a meaningful manner means looking for transboundary solutions, enabling cooperation between cities and their surrounding areas, and establishing regional agreements and a global platform that facilitates cross-regional experience sharing.
That is why this year’s theme focuses on the need for stronger partnerships, increased investment and shared responsibility. We need action at all levels from all stakeholders across all sectors.
What are some of the major sources of air pollution?
MO: While air pollution can come from natural sources, like volcanic eruptions and dust storms, most of the world’s population is impacted by human-caused air pollution. Major human sources of air pollution include power generation, transportation, industry, residential heating and cooking, agriculture, waste burning. Many of these are also sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and some pollutants are double agents, causing air pollution and near-term warming.
How does air pollution impact human health?
MO: Air pollution generally is a huge concern for human health, but we’re particularly concerned about the impact of PM2.5. These are invisible to the human eye and 40 times smaller than the width of a human hair. Due to their size, these tiny particles can penetrate deep into our lungs, where they cause inflammation, and can also pass into our bloodstream and damage our heart and brain.
Pollution has both long-term impacts – such as heart disease, cancers, and strokes – and short-term impacts, including irritation of the eyes, nose and throat, shortness of breath, coughs, and asthma attacks.
We’ve tended to express health impacts through the number of premature deaths. But our day-to-day quality of life is affected, too. Air pollution impacts all age groups but those with higher vulnerability suffer the most. It may even affect the development of the unborn.
What can we do to improve air quality?
MO: Clean air strategies vary based on local contexts. No one solution fits all; improving air quality requires multiple solutions across different sectors. However, we all can and must act. Individuals should make decisions that promote clean air. Businesses and industries can clean up their processes and products all along their value chains. We must also prioritize clean air in city planning and local and central government legislation and enforcement.
There are a few common elements to this. Governments can set and enforce air pollution standards and meet the next milestones set out in the 2021 World Health Organization guidelines. They should also increase the capacity to monitor and assess air quality. Businesses and industries can add air quality to their corporate social responsibility activities, report and monitor the pollution they emit, and actively promote programmes to reduce emissions.
Is there anything the average person can do about air pollution?
MO: Most air pollution is structural and embedded in the economic processes underpinning modern societies, so we must start with individuals getting informed on the levels of air pollution where they live and how it impacts them. We can also choose green purchases and adapt how we move and cook. We must also call for structural change from businesses and local and central governments. Individual actions may look small but multiplied by the number of people on our planet, they add up. We must come together for clean air.
Every year, on 7 September, the world celebrates the International Day of Clean Air for blue skies. The day aims to raise awareness and facilitate actions to improve air quality. It is a global call to find new ways of doing things, to reduce the amount of air pollution we cause, and ensure that everyone, everywhere can enjoy their right to breathe clean air.
