Air pollution 'will become bigger global killer than dirty
water'
OECD report says pollution will
become biggest cause of premature death, killing an estimated 3.6 million people
a year by 2050
OECD
report:
Fiona
Harvey
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 March
2012 17.44 GMT
Beijing, China, which is one of the countries
likely to be worst hit by pollution-triggered deaths in coming decades.
Photograph: David Gray/Reuters
Urban air pollution is set to become
the biggest environmental cause of premature death in the coming decades,
overtaking even such mass killers as poor sanitation and a lack of clean
drinking water, according to a new report.
Both developed and developing
countries will be hit, and by 2050, there could be 3.6 million premature deaths
a year from exposure to particulate matter, most of them in China and India. But rich
countries will suffer worse effects from exposure to ground-level ozone, because
of their ageing populations – older people are more
susceptible.
The warning comes in a new report
from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which is
a study of the global environmental outlook until 2050. The report found four
key areas that are of most concern – climate change, loss of biodiversity, water
and the health impacts of pollution.
If current policies are allowed to
carry on, the world will far exceed the levels of greenhouse gas emissions that
scientists say are safe, the report found. "I call it the surrender scenario –
where we would be if governments do nothing more than what they have pledged
already?" said Simon Upton, environment director at the OECD. "But it could be
even worse than that, we've found."
The report said that global
greenhouse gas emissions could increase by as much as half, as energy demand
rises strongly, if countries fail to use cleaner forms of energy. Water demand
is also likely to rise by more than half, and by 2050 as much as 40% of the
global population is likely to be living in areas under severe water stress.
Groundwater depletion would become the biggest threat to agriculture and to
urban water supplies, while pollution from sewage and waste water – including
chemicals used in cleaning – will put further strain on
supplies.
However, the OECD study alsos said
that there are some actions that governments can take quickly to tackle some of
the key problems. For instance, many governments treat diesel fuel for vehicles
differently than petrol for tax purposes, with tax breaks that encourage the
take-up of diesel. But although diesel vehicle fuel produces lower greenhouse
gas emissions than petrol, it is far worse for spewing out small particulate
matter, which is bad for urban pollution. "In environmental terms, there is no
reason to give diesel tax breaks over petrol," said Upton.
Governments could also remove other
environmentally harmful subsidies, such as fossil fuel subsidies and subsidies
for water that encourage irresponsible use of the resource. Biofuels are another
potential danger area, because although they can emit less carbon than
conventional fossil fuels, they also contribute to reducing biodiversity and put
further strains on water use, so governments should consider carefully whether
to go down the biofuels road, Upton warned.
Upton said that if governments took
action now, and developed long-term views of these environmental problems, it
would give them a much greater chance of avoiding the worst outcomes. "The key
thing is that these four biggest problems are interconnnected – biodiversity is
affected by climate change and land use, water is linked to health problems, for
instance. You can't solve any one of these in isolation. So to be effective,
governments have to focus on all of these four and look very closely at the
connections between them," he said
