Air Pollution
Dutch health gains from reduced air pollution
https://airclim.org/acidnews/dutch-health-gains-reduced-air-pollution
A recent scientific study by researchers from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) has investigated how much the air quality and associated health effects have improved in the Netherlands since 1980.
It also estimated how much of this change can be attributed to reductions in emissions in the Netherlands itself, and how much to emissions reductions in other countries, as well as which source sectors, domestic and foreign, and which policy measures contributed most to the improvements in air quality.
International air pollution control policies include those under the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) as well as measures resulting from EU legislation. Additional emission reductions have also resulted from specific national and local initiatives.
Quantification was done by computer model calculations with high spatial resolution for concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), particulate matter (PM₁₀, PM₂.₅), and elemental carbon (EC) in the Netherlands from 1980 to 2015, using two emission scenarios.
The first scenario follows the officially reported emissions of the relevant air pollutants in all European countries. It serves as a reference for the second scenario, in which it was assumed that no air quality policies had been adopted from 1980 onwards and that the emissions of air pollutants had continued to grow, largely in line with the growth in economic activity. Emission changes resulting from other effects, such as changes in the economic structure or improvements in energy efficiency, are said to be taken into account using activity data.
Benefits from emission reductions were quantified in terms of fewer exceedances of air quality limit values in the Netherlands, and lowered exposure of the Dutch population to high concentrations of air pollutants, including related reductions in health damage.
According to the study, the largest health effects of air pollution are associated with exposure to PM₂.₅ (about 85%), with a smaller contribution from exposure to NO₂ (about 15%).
In the scenario without policies, the average PM₂.₅ concentration in the Netherlands increased from 59 μg/m3 in 1980 to 102 μg/m3 in 2015. In reality, however, the concentrations decreased to about 12 μg/m3.
Similarly, the average NO₂ concentration increased from about 30 μg/m3 in 1980 to 45 μg/m3 in 2015 in the no-policy scenario, while the real development shows a reduction to about 15 μg/m3.
World failing to provide children with a healthy life and a climate fit for their future
As climate and commercial threats intensify, WHO-UNICEF-Lancet Commission presses for radical rethink on child health
https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/19-02-2020-world-failing-to-provide-children-with-a-healthy-life-and-a-climate-fit-for-their-future-who-unicef-lancet
No single country is adequately protecting children’s health, their environment and their futures, finds a landmark report released today by a Commission of over 40 child and adolescent health experts from around the world. The Commission was convened by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and The Lancet.
The report, A Future for the World’s Children?, finds that the health and future of every child and adolescent worldwide is under immediate threat from ecological degradation, climate change and exploitative marketing practices that push heavily processed fast food, sugary drinks, alcohol and tobacco at children.
“Despite improvements in child and adolescent health over the past 20 years, progress has stalled, and is set to reverse,” said former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Co-Chair of the Commission, Helen Clark. “It has been estimated that around 250 million children under five years old in low- and middle-income countries are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential, based on proxy measures of stunting and poverty. But of even greater concern, every child worldwide now faces existential threats from climate change and commercial pressures.
“Countries need to overhaul their approach to child and adolescent health, to ensure that we not only look after our children today but protect the world they will inherit in the future,” she added.
Intensifying climate change threatens every child’s future
The report includes a new global index of 180 countries, comparing performance on child flourishing, including measures of child survival and well-being, such as health, education, and nutrition; sustainability, with a proxy for greenhouse gas emissions, and equity, or income gaps. [Top & Bottom 10 countries; Full Global Index on pp. 35-38] [1]
According to the report, while the poorest countries need to do more to support their children’s ability to live healthy lives, excessive carbon emissions – disproportionately from wealthier countries – threaten the future of all children. If global warming exceeds 4°C by the year 2100 in line with current projections, this would lead to devastating health consequences for children, due to rising ocean levels, heatwaves, proliferation of diseases like malaria and dengue, and malnutrition.
The index shows that children in Norway, the Republic of Korea, and the Netherlands have the best chance at survival and well-being, while children in Central African Republic, Chad, Somalia, Niger and Mali face the worst odds. However, when authors took per capita CO2 emissions into account, the top countries trail behind: Norway ranked 156, the Republic of Korea 166, and the Netherlands 160. Each of the three emits 210% more CO2 per capita than their 2030 target. The United States of America (USA), Australia, and Saudi Arabia are among the ten worst emitters.
“More than 2 billion people live in countries where development is hampered by humanitarian crises, conflicts, and natural disasters, problems increasingly linked with climate change,” said Minister Awa Coll-Seck from Senegal, Co-Chair of the Commission. “While some of the poorest countries have among the lowest CO2 emissions, many are exposed to the harshest impacts of a rapidly changing climate. Promoting better conditions today for children to survive and thrive nationally does not have to come at the cost of eroding children’s futures globally.”
The only countries on track to beat CO2 emission per capita targets by 2030, while also performing fairly (within the top 70) on child flourishing measures are: Albania, Armenia, Grenada, Jordan, Moldova, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Uruguay and Viet Nam.
Harmful commercial marketing preys on children – with childhood obesity increasing 11-fold
The report also highlights the distinct threat posed to children from harmful marketing. Evidence suggests that children in some countries see as many as 30,000 advertisements on television alone in a single year, while youth exposure to vaping (e-cigarettes) advertisements increased by more than 250% in the USA over two years, reaching more than 24 million young people.
Professor Anthony Costello, one of the Commission’s authors, said: “Industry self-regulation has failed. Studies in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and the USA – among many others – have shown that self-regulation has not hampered commercial ability to advertise to children. For example, despite industry signing up to self-regulation in Australia, children and adolescent viewers were still exposed to 51 million alcohol ads during just one year of televised football, cricket and rugby. And the reality could be much worse still: we have few facts and figures about the huge expansion of social media advertising and algorithms aimed at our children.”
Children’s exposure to commercial marketing of junk food and sugary beverages is associated with purchase of unhealthy foods and overweight and obesity, linking predatory marketing to the alarming rise in childhood obesity. The number of obese children and adolescents increased from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016 – an 11-fold increase, with dire individual and societal costs.
A manifesto for immediate action on child and adolescent health
To protect children, the independent Commission authors call for a new global movement driven by and for children. Specific recommendations include:
Stop CO2 emissions with the utmost urgency, to ensure children have a future on this planet;
Place children and adolescents at the centre of our efforts to achieve sustainable development;
New policies and investment in all sectors to work towards child health and rights;
Incorporate children’s voices into policy decisions;
Tighten national regulation of harmful commercial marketing, supported by a new Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Dr. Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet family of journals, said: “The opportunity is great. The evidence is available. The tools are at hand. From heads-of-state to local government, from UN leaders to children themselves, this Commission calls for the birth of a new era for child and adolescent health. It will take courage and commitment to deliver. It is the supreme test of our generation.”
“From the climate crisis to obesity and harmful commercial marketing, children around the world are having to contend with threats that were unimaginable just a few generations ago,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director. “It is time for a rethink on child health, one which places children at the top of every government’s development agenda and puts their well-being above all considerations.”
“This report shows that the world’s decision makers are, too often, failing today’s children and youth: failing to protect their health, failing to protect their rights, and failing to protect their planet,” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization said. “This must be a wakeup call for countries to invest in child health and development, ensure their voices are heard, protect their rights, and build a future that is fit for children.”
Breakthrough research reveals hypoxia can cause transgenerational reproductive impairment
A team led by The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) has revealed for the first time that hypoxia, a deficiency in oxygen, can cause transgenerational reproductive impairment in fish. This major breakthrough in environmental science was the result of a four-year joint project with team members from four other Hong Kong universities, and is testimony to EdUHK’s high quality research with global impact.
http://www.qswownews.com/2017/08/08/breakthrough-research-reveals-hypoxia-can-cause-transgenerational-reproductive-impairment/
From 2012 to 2016, the team compared the reproductive ability of marine medaka fish and the subsequent three generations of their offspring raised in seawater under normal and low levels of oxygen (hypoxia).
This important discovery has been published in the authoritative scientific journal Nature Communications. Team leader Professor Rudolf Wu, research chair professor of biological sciences at EdUHK, said that “recent climate change has caused the sea temperature to rise and oxygen level to drop. This, together with the large amount of nutrient-rich wastewater being disposed of in the ocean has caused excessive phytoplankton growth, which has led to hypoxia.”
To determine how the imminent threat of hypoxia would affect marine life, the team put marine medaka fish into two groups: one group kept in seawater with normal levels of oxygen and the other group in seawater with low oxygen (the hypoxic group). The offspring produced by the hypoxic group were then divided into two groups, with one returned to seawater with normal oxygen and the other kept under the low oxygen condition. The team then compared the reproductive ability, epigenetics and protein and gene expression of all three groups.
The team found that the second and third generations produced by hypoxic fish had lower levels of male hormones, poorer sperm quality and lower sperm motility and fertilisation success, despite having lived in seawater with a normal oxygen level throughout their lives. The observed reproductive impairment was associated with relevant epigenetic changes and changes in gene and protein expressions. This transgenerational effect revealed is of particular importance to Hong Kong and China, where hypoxia caused by pollution commonly occurs over large areas.
This breakthrough also has significant implications for humans. There is clinic evidence showing that men suffering from sleep apnea, who experience oxygen deprivation while sleeping, have lower sex hormone levels and sex drives. Other studies have shown that people who live at high altitudes with lower oxygen levels have lower sex hormone levels than those who live in lowlands. “Since the epigenetics and sex hormone regulation mechanisms are highly conserved and similar in both fish and humans, hypoxia may also lead to transgenerational reproductive impairment in male adult humans,” said Professor Wu.
This new finding by Professor Wu’s team shows that the adverse consequences of hypoxia are much more severe than currently perceived. “Despite some people arguing that improvements in environmental quality must be cost-effective,” he said, “we must also take into account that pollution may cause permanent reproductive impairments in future generations.”
The EdUHK-led team’s findings sound a very timely warning note for us all – if appropriate environmental protection measures are not taken now, the damage to both human and marine life may well be irreversible and unbearable.
Air pollution is the ‘tobacco of the 21st century’, warn experts
Bad air is the source of ‘huge illness which is entirely preventable if we take the issue seriously’, IPPR researcher says
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/air-pollution-tobacco-21-century-quality-breathing-health-problems-lungs-experts-ippr-a7846761.html
Air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels is the “tobacco of the 21st century”, an expert has warned after a report found some cities in northern England were breaching legal safety limits by up to 150 per cent.
It is estimated that the air we breathe causes about 40,000 premature deaths a year in Britain, mainly affecting children, elderly people and those with respiratory conditions.
The report, by the Institute for Public Policy Research North think tank, noted that all but two of 11 air quality reporting zones in the North exceeded legal limits for nitrogen dioxide, according to the Government’s own figures.
Some areas, including Merseyside and Teesside, were up to 150 per cent above the legal limit for the pollutant, which inflames the lining of the lung and reduces immunity to infections such as bronchitis.
Within the next few weeks, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is expected to publish its third attempt at an air quality plan designed to bring pollution to within legal safety limits.
Its previous attempts have been widely regarded as half-hearted at best with environmental group ClientEarth twice winning court orders forcing Ministers to produce a more effective plan.
Darren Baxter, a research with IPPR North, compared the debate over what to do about air pollution to the realisation that smoking was harmful to health about 50 years ago.
“This is the tobacco of the 21st century and every single preventable death is a failure of government action,” he said.
“Michael Gove [the Environment Secretary] must get a grip on this crisis which is killing literally thousands of children and adults a year.
“This is a huge illness which is entirely preventable if we take the issue seriously and take the sort of big actions that governments took on policy for smoking in the 1960s onwards when the public health effects became clear.
“So for this it means clean air zones, phasing out diesel and huge expansion in electric cars.”
Mr Baxter said that “too often” the focus of concern about air pollution had been on London.
“But the reality is that it’s poisoning thousands in our regional cities too,” he said.
“Michael Gove must show that the Government is not prepared to sit on its hands while up to 40,000 people are killed every year from dirty air.
“We need to see radical plans to ditch diesel, introduce incentives for electric cars and bring in Clean Air Zones in our major cities.”
The report called for an “explicit pledge” to phase out diesel cars and “formally investigate even more ambitious targets” after the publication of the Air Quality Plan.
A network of new clean air zones should be created to cover “all major urban areas in the UK”.
“The potential socio-economic and environmental gains from the realisation of a cleaner, more efficient transport system are enormous,” the report said.
But it warned the UK risked slipping behind other countries that are embracing cleaner forms of transport.
“There could be much to learn from abroad; other countries are beginning to overtake the UK in ushering in a new mobility system. Germany, in particular, is undergoing an explicit mobility transition (Verkehrswende); the UK could and should do the same,” the report said.
A Defra spokesperson said: “We are firmly committed to improving the UK’s air quality and cutting harmful emissions.
“That’s why we have committed more than £2bn since 2011 to increase the uptake of ultra-low emissions vehicles and support greener transport schemes, and set out how we will improve air quality through a new programme of Clean Air Zones.”