This Environmental Problem Kills More People Than AIDS

[HuffingtonPost]

OSLO, April 9 (Reuters) - Air pollution is an underestimated  scourge that kills far more people than AIDS and malaria and a  shift to cleaner energy could easily halve the toll by 2030,  U.N. officials said on Tuesday.                

Investments in solar, wind or hydropower would benefit both  human health and a drive by almost 200 nations to slow climate  change, blamed mainly on a build-up of greenhouse gases in the  atmosphere from use of fossil fuels, they said.                

"Air pollution is causing more deaths than HIV or malaria  combined," Kandeh Yumkella, director general of the U.N.  Industrial Development Organization, told a conference in Oslo  trying to work out new U.N. development goals for 2030.                

Most victims from indoor pollution, caused by wood fires and  primitive stoves in developing nations, were women and children.                

He suggested that new U.N. energy goals for 2030 should  include halving the number of premature deaths caused by indoor  and outdoor pollution.                

A 2012 World Health Organization (WHO) study found that 3.5  million people die early annually from indoor air pollution and  3.3 million from outdoor air pollution. Toxic particles shorten  lives by causing diseases such as pneumonia or cancer.                

"The problem has been underestimated in the past," Maria  Neira, the WHO's director of public health and environment, told  Reuters. Smog is an acute problem from Beijing to Mexico City.                

The data, published as part of a global review of causes of  death in December 2012, were an upwards revision of previous  figures of 1.9 million premature deaths caused by household  pollution a year and 1.3 million outdoors, she said.                

The revision reflects better measurements and changes in  methods, such as including heart problems linked to pollutants,  she said. The numbers cannot be added together because they  include perhaps 500,000 from overlapping causes.                                

SIX MILLION                

"Still, it means more than 6 million deaths every year  caused by air pollution," she said. "The horrible thing is that  this will be growing" because of rising use of fossil fuels.                

By comparison, U.N. reports show there were about 1.7  million AIDS-related deaths in 2011 and malaria killed about  660,000 people in 2010.                

Solutions were affordable, the experts said.                

"If we increase access to clean energy ... the health  benefits will be enormous. Maybe the health argument was not  used enough" in debate on encouraging a shift from fossil fuels  to renewable energies, she said.                

Almost 200 governments have agreed to work out by the end of  2015 a deal to combat climate change. But negotiations have  stalled, partly because of economic slowdown and divisions  between nations about how to share out the burden of cuts.                

Yumkella also urged the world to build 400,000 clinics and  medical units in developing nations by 2030 as part of U.N.  energy and health goals. Vaccines, for instance, are often  useless without refrigeration, which depends on electricity.                

The United Nations has previously urged 2030 targets for  universal access to energy, doubling the global rate of  improvement in energy efficiency and doubling the share of  renewable energy in global consumption.        (Reporting by Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent; Editing  by Jon Hemming)

Via: HuffingtonPost