New Delhi: World is clebrating the International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, on Wednesday to raise awareness and facilitate actions to improve air quality.
The day is considered the more significant, as air pollution is the world’s single largest environmental health risk and one of the main avoidable causes of death and disease globally.
As per, WHO 99 per cent of the world’s population is now breathing polluted air, with 7 million people die each year due to air pollution alone. And among them 90% are from the low- and middle-income countries.
The burden of air pollution in Asia and the Pacific region is among the highest in the world, with an estimated 4 million premature deaths attributed to exposure to air pollution.
The day is also observed to make a global call to find new ways of doing things, to reduce the amount of air pollution we cause, and ensure that everyone, everywhere can enjoy their right to breathe clean air.
This year the theme of the third annual International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, facilitated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is “The Air We Share.”
It focuses on the transboundary nature of air pollution highlighting the need for collective accountability and collective action.
On November 26, 2019, the Second Committee of the 74th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted a resolution designating 7 September as the “International Day of Clean Air for blue skies”.
The resolution stresses the importance of, and urgent need to, raise public awareness at all levels and to promote and facilitate actions to improve air quality.
The first celebration was in 2020 under the theme “Clean Air for All.” This was followed by the second commemoration in 2021 under the theme “Healthy Air, Healthy Planet.”
UN Chief Anonio Guterres has called upon people to work togather and speed up sustainable develpoment to combat air pollution.
In his meaasage he said, “We know what to do: invest in renewable energy and swiftly transition away from fossil fuels; rapidly move to zero emission vehicles and alternative modes of transport; increase access to clean cooking, heating and cooling; recycle waste instead of burning it. These actions would save millions of lives each year. Slow climate change and speed up sustainable development Air pollution knows no borders, so nations must work together”
David Boyd, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, said, “having a right to a healthy environment changes people’s perspective from begging to demanding governments to act.”
Last month, the United Nations General Assembly passed a historic resolution declaring access to a healthy environment a universal human right.
The resolution has been lauded around the world in recent weeks, raising hopes it will prod governments to tackle a host of long-neglected environmental problems.
According to UNEP’s 2021 Actions on Air Quality report, Only 31 per cent of countries have legal mechanisms for managing or addressing transboundary air pollution, while 43 per cent of countries even lack a legal definition for air pollution.
Most countries still lack consistent air quality monitoring and air quality management frameworks.
Experts in India has also raised concerns over its “critically low” air quality monitoring stations and saying that these “under-equipped” monitoring stations are major hindrances to framing effective policies for air pollution mitigation.
India needs at least 4000 monitors but has just 969 (as of 2020) as per report.
As per UNEP’s first global assessment of air pollution legislation in 2021, one-third of the world’s countries have no legally-mandated ambient air quality standards. And in many cases, even when these standards exist, they are not adhered to.
According the World Bank, in 2019 air pollution alone, cost the world economy US$8.1 trillion, equivalent to 6.1 per cent of global gross domestic product.
