The 12th Better Air Quality conference opened with a call to treat clean air as vital economic infrastructure, highlighting the large benefit-cost return – but financing clean-tech is a challenge in developing nations. BANGKOK – Short-term impacts of bad air quality don’t just cause high economic costs but also lead to children scoring poorly in […] Continue reading ->
While air pollution claims more than eight million lives annually, the burden of proving exactly which air polluters or tailpipes caused a specific lung cancer or child’s asthma attack has rested firmly on the shoulders of the sick. That is about to change, according to a landmark United Nations (UN) report by Astrid Puentes Riaño, […] Continue reading ->
The 12th Better Air Quality conference in Bangkok, which opens on Wednesday, is the first large climate and air quality gathering since the US and Israel attacked Iran, triggering an oil and gas-energy crisis. BANGKOK – The ‘Gulf War 3’ threatens to slow down climate action and the move to cleaner air. However, in the […] Continue reading ->
For decades, residents of Kakola-Ombaka village in Western Kenya lived through cycles of seasonal heatwaves and droughts on the shores of Lake Victoria without significant harm. That changed in 2019, when heavy rainfall of unprecedented intensity struck the area. The entire village and surrounding communities were inundated. The lake swelled, water levels rose steadily, banks […] Continue reading ->
Two regional research hubs that aim to develop climate adaptation strategies that reduce health impacts are to be established in Ghana and South Africa under the terms of a new £40 million climate-health initiative led by African universities and the Wellcome Trust, announced on Thursday. Along with the two hubs in South Africa and Ghana, […] Continue reading ->
“If we redirect healthcare funding to climate infrastructure, cholera spikes in the Sundarbans,” one student warns, tracking disease markers across the board. “Dengue and malaria already rise with every flood.” “But without climate investment, there are no jobs and no resilience infrastructure,” another counters, shifting resource tokens. “How do vulnerable populations survive the next cyclone?” […] Continue reading ->
MUMBAI, India – Air pollution and heat are much worse together for human health than each of them alone, said Dr Soumya Swaminathan, former chief scientist at the World Health Organization, speaking at this week’s Mumbai Climate Week (MCW). Heat and air pollution were among the key regional priorities during the three-day event that brought […] Continue reading ->
Extreme heat will rise rapidly as the 1.5°C threshold is crossed, potentially causing half the world’s population to live in extreme heat by 2050, Shiny, glass-facade buildings are a symbol of modernisation and growth, but such buildings are dangerously vulnerable in a rapidly warming world, as they trap solar heat and will face much greater […] Continue reading ->
Hailed as the “single largest deregulatory action in US history,” the Environmental Protection Agency repealed a 2009 scientific decision that gave the agency the authority to regulate climate change pollutants, also known as the Endangerment Finding. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has eliminated the scientific finding that determined planet warming gases also harm human […] Continue reading ->
The world has entered the era of “global water bankruptcy” as water systems relied on by six billion people, and half of the world’s food production, are pushed beyond the point of recovery, a United Nations (UN) report has found. The report marks the first time UN scientists have declared water systems “bankrupt” rather than […] Continue reading ->