The Lancet Commission Report on Global Pollution and Health

The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health published its Report on October 19, 2017. The Commission is an initiative of The Lancet (one of the world’s most prestigious and widely read medical journals), the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP), and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, with additional coordination and input from UNEP, UNIDO and the World Bank.

The aim of the Lancet Commission is to raise global awareness of pollution, end neglect of pollution-related disease, and mobilise the resources and the political will needed to effectively confront pollution. The aim of the Commission is also to reduce air, soil and water pollution by communicating the extraordinary health and economic costs of pollution globally, providing actionable solutions to policy-makers and dispelling the myth of pollution’s inevitability.

The Commission comprises many of the world’s most influential leaders, researchers and practitioners in the fields of pollution management, environmental health and sustainable development.

Main conclusions of the Report

·      Pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and premature death in the world today. Diseases caused by pollution were responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths in 2015—16% of all deaths worldwide— three times more deaths than from AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined and 15 times more than from all wars and other forms of violence. In the most severely affected countries, pollution-related disease is responsible for more than one death in four.

·      Pollution disproportionately kills the poor and the vulnerable. Nearly 92% of pollution-related deaths occur in low-income and middle-income countries and, in countries at every income level, disease caused by pollution is most prevalent among minorities and the marginalised.

·      Despite its substantial effects on human health, the economy, and the environment, pollution has been neglected, especially in low-income and middle-income countries, and the health effects of pollution are under- estimated in calculations of the global burden of disease.

·      Pollution is costly. Pollution-related diseases cause productivity losses that reduce gross domestic product (GDP) in low-income to middle-income countries by up to 2% per year.

·      Pollution endangers planetary health, destroys eco-systems, and is intimately linked to global climate change. Fuel combustion—fossil fuel combustion in high-income and middle-income countries and burning of biomass in low-income countries—accounts for 85% of airborne particulate pollution and for almost all pollution by oxides of sulphur and nitrogen. Fuel combustion is also a major source of the greenhouse gases and short-lived climate pollutants that drive climate change. Key emitters of carbon dioxide, such as electricity-generating plants, chemical manufacturing facilities, mining operations, deforestation, and petroleum-powered vehicles, are also major sources of pollution. Coal is the world’s most polluting fossil fuel, and coal combustion is an important cause of both pollution and climate change.

·      In many parts of the world, pollution is getting worse. Ambient air pollution, chemical pollution, and soil pollution—the forms of pollution produced by industry, mining, electricity generation, mechanised agriculture, and petroleum-powered vehicles—are all on the rise.

·      Chemical pollution is a great and growing global problem. Chemicals and pesticides have repeatedly been responsible for episodes of disease, death, and environmental degradation.

·      Cities, especially rapidly growing cities in industrialising countries, are severely affected by pollution.

Recommendations of the Report

(1) Make pollution prevention a high priority nationally and internationally and integrate it into country and city planning processes.  

(2) Mobilise, increase, and focus the funding and the international technical support dedicated to pollution control.

(3) Establish systems to monitor pollution and its effects on health.

(4) Build multi-sectoral partnerships for pollution control.

(5) Integrate pollution mitigation into planning processes for non-communicable diseases.

(6) Research pollution and pollution control: Research is needed to understand and control pollution and to drive change in pollution policy.

(This post relates to Chapters 11 and 12 of the Book. What the Lancet Commission Report says about India will be covered in the next post.)