{"id":16121,"date":"2024-09-07T23:14:32","date_gmt":"2024-09-07T18:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/?p=16121"},"modified":"2024-09-07T23:14:32","modified_gmt":"2024-09-07T18:14:32","slug":"lives-combats-climate-change-unsg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/2024\/09\/07\/lives-combats-climate-change-unsg\/","title":{"rendered":"Investing in clean air saves lives, combats climate change: UNSG"},"content":{"rendered":"

Investing in clean air saves lives, combats climate change: UNSG<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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UNITED NATIONS:<\/p>\n

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Saturday marked \u2018Clean Air Day\u2019 with a call for global investment in solutions that tackle climate change and the increasing public health, environmental, and economic harm caused by air pollution.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s International Day for Clean air and Blue Skies, celebrated annually on 7 September, is focused on the theme \u2018Invest in #CleanAirNow\u2019 and highlights the economic, environmental and health benefits of investing in clean air.<\/p>\n

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The Day was established in 2019 after the UN General Assembly noted how detrimental air pollutants are and recognized the importance of clean air for people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

In his message on the occasion, the UN chief said pollution is a silent killer that can be stopped and urged the world to \u201cinvest now, so we can breathe easy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Guterres highlighted how harmful pollution can be, noting that 99 per cent of humanity breathes polluted air which leads to millions of global premature deaths.<\/p>\n

\u201cPollution is also choking economies and heating up our planet, adding fuel to the fire of the climate crisis,\u201d the UN chief said. \u201cAnd it disproportionally affects those most vulnerable in society, including women, children, and older persons.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Secretary-General said investing in clean air will take action from governments, businesses, development organizations and more at a regional and global level.<\/p>\n

Guterres is encouraging the relevant stakeholders to decrease their use of fossil fuels, transition to clean cooking and increase air quality monitoring.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200b\u200bInvesting in clean air saves lives, combats climate change, strengthens economies, builds fairer societies, and advances the Sustainable Development Goals,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026let\u2019s invest now so we can breathe easy knowing we are securing a healthier planet for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guterres\u2019 message marking the international day highlights some of the challenges outlined in a new report from the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which details the impacts of climate change, wildfires and air pollution on human health.<\/p>\n

The report noted that both the northern and southern hemispheres experienced \u201chyper-active wildfire seasons\u201d in 2023 which caused numerous deaths and damaged livestock.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 2023 wildfire season set a multi-decade record in Canada in terms of total area burned, with seven times more hectares burned than the 1990\u20132013 average, according to the Canadian National Fire Database,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

The wildfires also worsened air quality in eastern Canada and the north-eastern United States.<\/p>\n

For that reason, the WMO Deputy-Secretary-General Ko Barrett said climate change and air quality cannot be treated separately.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey go hand-in-hand and must be tackled together,\u201d Ms. Barrett said. \u201cIt would be a win-win situation for the health of our planet, its people and our economies, to recognize the inter-relationship and act accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also recognizing the need for global change as the international day for clear air approaches is the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) which described air pollution as the \u201cbiggest environmental health risk of our time\u201d noting that it worsens climate change, reduces agricultural productivity and causes economic loss.<\/p>\n

Inger Andersen, UNEP\u2019s Executive Director, said, \u201cEvery person on this planet has a right to breathe clean air, yet almost every person is having this right violated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Andersen echoed the UN chief\u2019s call for there to be a global investment in clean air.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are asking nations and regions and cities to establish robust air quality standards,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are asking them to back renewable energy and sustainable transport to hold industry to account with strict emission standards, and to integrate air quality into climate action,\u201d Ms. Andersen continued.<\/p>\n

UNEP says if air pollution is tackled proactively, transformative change and healthy air can be achieved.<\/p>\n

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Source: APP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Investing in clean air saves lives, combats climate change: UNSG     UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Saturday marked \u2018Clean Air Day\u2019 with a call for global investment in solutions that tackle climate change and the increasing public health, environmental, and economic harm caused by air pollution. This year\u2019s International Day for Clean air […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":14673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2297,2299],"tags":[2729,2791,2382],"class_list":["post-16121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change","category-latest-news","category-world","tag-antonio-guterres","tag-climate-change","tag-united-nations"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16121"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16123,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16121\/revisions\/16123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}