The World Health Organisation (WHO) has sought support from India to lead the dialogue on air pollution vis-à-vis the impact on health at COP28.
Addressing the second day of India Clean Air Summit (ICAS) 2023 in Bengaluru, Dr. Maria Neira, Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, WHO, said, “India now has the presidency of G20, one of the interventions of which is decarbonisation of the healthcare sector, but we need your support, and collaboration in providing ideas for strengthening the health community’s argument on health on December 3 in COP28.”
The United Nations Climate Change Conference commonly referred to as COP28 will be held from November 12 to December 12 in Dubai.
Health has been included as a theme in the COP28 for the first time. The WHO is looking at a goal of bringing a large number of health professionals from various countries to COP28 as air pollution and climate change have huge overlaps.
Neira urged India’s participation to lead in tackling this by being committed towards the issue.
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“We want India leading, providing, committed, and outspoken to include air pollution challenges in the conversation amidst the recent spotlight. We need to accelerate the transition towards cleaner sources of energy and we believe that India could give very good results in this,” said Neira.
According to her, three transitions are required to achieve the goals, namely, reduced dependence on fossil fuels by transitioning to cleaner fuels, transition towards better urban planning, and transition towards sustainable ecosystems.
“There is a lot to gain with the right steps, but also a lot to lose as well, if we don’t do so. Countries need to change the matrix of success, where success needs to be measured by the number of diseases they reduce and number of pollution-related deaths prevented,” she warned.
Neira added, “Breathing clean air is fundamental for our health. Tackling air pollution will not only positively impact our well-being– it will also contribute to achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including gender, energy or climate. The 5th edition of the India Clean Air Summit showed that India is fully committed to take air pollution seriously and holistically. We need India’s leadership to fight air pollution as they landed on the moon. We cannot work alone on fighting this – It’s time to save lives, support healthy communities, and help address the climate crisis we are all faced with today.”
Sharing data at ICAS 2023, Dr. Sarath Guttikunda, Founder/Director, UrbanEmissions.Info mentioned that India has 883 manual air monitoring stations and another 438 continuous air monitoring stations; however, 4,094 air monitoring stations are required, adding, “We have a lot of issues with the quality of the information from continuous stations, these challenges need to be addressed. Calibration, maintenance and integration are the areas where, both on the science and policy side, we need to work on. All of this will improve if we focus more on the training aspect.”
