Is Climate Change Related To Health?

The Climate Summit (COP25) will host the World Summit on Climate and Health on December 7, 2019, whose objective is to highlight that global action on climate change is also an urgent measure to preserve people’s health.

As recognized by the WHO, climate change has a serious impact on people’s health, especially due to its relationship with air pollution, which is responsible for millions of deaths around the world. For this reason, global actions and the political response to climate change will also largely depend on our future health.

If the signatory countries of the Paris Climate Agreement, which considers the “right to health” as one of its fundamental principles, announce their will to reduce CO2 emissions (NDC), our health will also benefit.

Pollutants that change the climate and affect health

Although air pollutants are often invisible, their health effects can be serious, especially on the lungs, heart, and other organs, as well as the developing fetus. Children and the elderly, chronic respiratory illnesses, heart patients or those with fragile health are the most vulnerable.

Recent data from the World Health Organization confirm that 9 out of 10 people worldwide breathe polluted air. It is the third leading cause of death in the world and only in Spain causes the death of 10,000 people a year. Environmental and scientific collectives warn that we are facing a public health crisis, which is why governments need to take urgent action.

Among the most harmful environmental pollutants are nitrogen oxides NO2 ( precisely those that cause the most deaths in Spain, around 6,000 a year), according to the Spanish Society of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR). They are followed by suspended particles (2,600 deaths per year), tropospheric ozone (more than 500) and others such as sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide or lead.

The transport sector is growing faster than other sources of emissions and will triple by 2050. This is relevant, because nitrogen oxides from diesel engines are the most damaging pollutant in large cities, such as Madrid or Barcelona, ​​where levels ceilings are systematically breached.

The suspended particles are regarded as a carcinogen of the first order and are closely associated with lung tumors, breast and gastrointestinal. They are also a cause of childhood pneumonia and hospital admissions for asthma, COPD or allergies.

The tropospheric ozone is produced by the reaction between nitrogen dioxide and hydrocarbons transport and some industries in the presence of solar radiation. The European Environment Agency estimates that in Spain it causes 1,800 premature deaths annually.

Is the air that Spaniards breathe healthy?

According to Ecologists in Action, tropospheric ozone levels in Spain are skyrocketing and maximum levels are systematically breached. The areas where they are not complied with disturb almost 19 million inhabitants of Andalusia, Aragon, the Balearic Islands, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Catalonia, the Valencian Country, Extremadura, Murcia, Navarra and Madrid, the most affected by urban traffic.

Another major focus is on the Mediterranean coast, from Girona to Algeciras, the Valencian Community, Murcia and the Balearic Islands, where the high degree of urbanization of the coast and the high maritime and airport traffic affects more than three million people. The gases and toxic particles from intensive farms, such as ammonia and PM2.5 microparticles, also increase respiratory diseases in the border population.

In Spain, large polluting ships pollute in the same proportion as the gases emitted by road traffic exhausts (32.5%) and industrial or energy-producing plants (32.4%), according to SEPAR.

More and more people have to deal with the terrible health impacts (of polluted and toxic air) and citizens are already standing up and demanding solutions around the world. In addition, “air pollution travels through the atmosphere and knows no national borders,” warned Greenpeace International Executive Director Jennifer Morgan on the occasion of World Environment Day this year. “We must stop this silent murderer and take the leap towards a cleaner, fair and sustainable future,” he added.

Governments must act

Clean air is a basic human right. That is why environmental associations, scientists and citizens demand urgent measures to improve air quality. These measures include:

• Gradually eliminate coal-fired power plants and convert to more efficient transportation with renewable energy.
• Restrict the circulation of the most polluting vehicles through Low Emission Zones, large pedestrian areas or urban tolls.
• Promote public and collective travel, on foot and by bike.
• Create an Emissions Control Area that limits the entry of highly polluting vessels into the Mediterranean Sea.
• Act on the industry with concrete plans to put a stop to tropospheric ozone.