CARTAGENA – Colombia President Gustavo Petro launched into a blistering attack on the new administration of United States President Donald Trump on the closing day of a three-day WHO conference here on air pollution – warning that progress on critical environmental health and climate topics depends on the “common agenda” that has been fostered by the system of multilateral cooperation – “and if the multilateral system doesn’t exist all of this will be in vain.”

The Trump administration, with its ultranationalist agenda, is “repeating the mistakes of history,” that led to the rise of fascism and  World War 2” he warned, saying, “we need to act against a vision that aims to impose itself over all of humanity. 

He warned that in the new international order the US is trying to shape, ideology threatens to overcome scientific facts, adding: “As George Orwell said in 1984, when each individual will imagine their own reality – then one of the victims of that new reality is health.”

And the “greed” of unbridled markets dominated by fossil fuel interests, meanwhile, stands in the way of a clean energy transition that would clean up the air and stabilize the climate, he said.

Turning calls for change into action

The president spoke ahead of a closing day that saw 17 countries and about 40 cities, civil society organizations and philanthropies make commitments to reducing air pollution – along the lines of a WHO call for halving air pollution-related mortality by 2040. 

Some 47 million health care professionals also signed a call for urgent action to reduce air pollution, published at the conference opening.

“Now, our collective task is to turn this call into action. Last month, WHO’s Executive Board agreed to a new global target to reduce the health impacts of air pollution by 50%,” said WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a video-taped statement to conference participants.  “We estimate that meeting this goal would save around 3 million lives every year.”

But with few high-level ministers in attendance at the Cartagena event, rallying more member states to the new WHO global target needs to be a long-term endeavor taken up at other climate and health fora, and with mechanisms and funding for tracking of progress over time – something lacking until now. 

The most immediate opportunity will be the upcoming May World Health Assembly – when member states are expected to review and adopt a new WHO Road Map for reducing air pollution’s health impacts, which includes the 50% target in the text. At February’s Executive Board meeting,  the 34 member governing body endorsed the Road Map. Final WHA approval in May would clear the way, at least politically, for a sustained effort amongst member states to meet the 50% target.   

Until now, there has never been a clear, quantifiable UN Sustainable Development Goal or WHO target for reducing air pollution, against which progress can be monitored and reported. SDG Target 3.9.1 , which calls for a “substantial” reduction in air pollution deaths and illnesses, is not really a target it all.

In addition, the health and economic benefits of air pollution mitigation, particularly the dual air and climate pollutant black carbon, need to be recognized more fully in climate treaties and finance mechanisms – and trillions in fossil fuel subsidies shifted to clean air incentives –  conference participants stressed over and over again.

Conference commitments are largely symbolic

In a difficult geopolitical climate, US government officials, who would have typically been a forceful presence at a WHO conference held in the Americas, were entirely absent.  And most European nations did not send ministerial-level delegates. Public commitments made at the conference were often more symbolic than tangible – representing only the start of a long, uphill battle for change. 

China and Brazil, as well as the United Kingdom, Mexico and Vietnam, for instance, committed to strengthening their air quality standards to align more closely with WHO air quality guidelines, although specific targets were not named.  China also said it would expand international collaborations on air pollution, based on its own national successes in driving down exceedingly high air pollution levels. 

Spain committed to a carbon-neutral health-care system by 2050, and Colombia committed to expand initiatives that improve air quality through a clean energy transition and advanced wildfire prevention and mitigation. 

Germany, Mongolia, Norway, Cuba, Mongolia and Mexico were among the countries commiting to reducing emissions in other key sectors, from agriculture to transport. Mexico said it would incorporate black carbon, a powerful climate as well as air pollutant, into national vehicle regulations to reduce particulate matter emissions. Mexicoi, together with Mongolia and Vietnam, also pledged to make air quality and health data publicly available.

Conflict-wracked Somalia committed to a 75% transition to clean cooking by 2040. The Philippines, Pakistan and Cuba also made various forms of commitments, as well as France.

India has already set a target of reducing particulate air pollution by 40% by 2026, over a 2017 baseline, said Dr Aakash Shrivastava, of the Ministry’s National Center for Disease Control, adding, “Even if this target is delayed it will likely progress towards 35% [reduction] by 2035,” in lines with the target outlined by WHO.  

On behalf of the powerful C40 cities network, representing almost 100 of the world’s biggest cities, the Deputy Mayor of London, Mete Coban, committed to advancing urban goals and strategies in line with WHO’s 2040 target and roadmap.

Meanwhile, the Clean Air Fund committed $90 million over the next two years to a series of ongoing air pollution and climate initiatives. Among those, it is collaborating with C-40 and Bloomberg in the new “Breathe Cities” network that is financing urban air pollution mitigation efforts – from afforestation to clean transit and waste management – in dozens of low- and middle income cities and towns across Africa, Asia and Latin America. It aims to expand the network to 100 cities by 2030. 

Action at urban level and repurposing fossil fuel subsidies 

A Clean Air Fund report launched at the conference found that halving the health impacts of air pollution by 2040 in just 60 cities worldwide could avoid 650,000-1 million deaths a year and save up to $1 trillion annually. 

Large cities, in particular, often wield considerable budget, regulatory and planning clout that can empower them as early adopters of new approach. 

“To tackle toxic air pollution as an issue of social justice,” said London Deputy Mayor, Mete Coban, who described how he grew up thinking it was normal for a kid to carry around a nebulizer for asthma, and now is part of London’s city government team that has brought center city air pollution levels down to suburban levels in just a few short years, through strategies such as the creation of an ultra-low emissions traffic zone.

“It’s an issue of racial justice, but also it’s an issue of economic justice; Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has put his own political career on the line because he doesn’t want to keep kicking the can down the road.”

Even so, national governments need to create a stable regulatory environment as well as consider the quantifiable air pollution and health benefits of clean energy and green sector investments, in government tax and finance policies, Jane Burston, head of the Clean Air Fund, told conference participants.  

“We found, for example, that climate investments only very barely consider the economics of the parallel reduced air pollution, and when that’s added in a third more climate investments become positive for ROI (return on investment),” Burston said. 

Governments also need to cut back on the trillions of dollars being spent on fossil fuel subsidies and redeploy those monies into clean energy and other healthy development strategies.

“Subsidies for fossil fuels for agriculture and fisheries exceed $7 trillion, that’s 8% of GDP, she said, citing the World Bank’s  2023 Detox Development report. 

“We know that there’s a shortage of development aid and at the same time, governments are spending trillions on ineffective subsidies that are worsening climate change,” Burston said.  “Money is tight. We know that. That’s why we need to invest in solutions that pay dividends in multiple ways… Clean Air is that solution, and investing in clean air isn’t only the right thing, it’s the smart thing.”

A 65% increase in annual investments could lead to transformative changes

A World Bank report launched at the conference, meanwhile, projected that an integrated basket of about $14 billion annually of investments in energy, transport, waste and other pollution producing sectors could halve by 2040 the number of people exposed to average outdoor (ambient) air concentrations of the most health harmful pollutant, PM2.5 above 25 micrograms per cubic meter (25 µg/m3). 

The relatively modest investments, roughly a 65% increase over current spending levels of about $8.5 billion a year, would reduce related air pollution mortality by about 2 million annually. The measures would also reduce emissions of black carbon by as much as 75 percent and yield about $1.9-$2.1 trillion in economic returns annually, said Benoit Bosquet, the Bank’s Regional Director for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean.. 

Conversely, in a business as usual scenario, exposure to levels of outdoor air pollution above (25 µg/m3), will affect nearly 6 billion people by 2040, as compared to about 3.3 billion today, he warned. 

Costs of air pollution today are estimated at about $8.1 trillion, or about 10% of global GDP. 

President: the Amazon to transport, need stronger preventive health systems and strategies

But while the financial case for change, on paper, may be crystal clear, in the reality of a developing country, the challenges are far greater, as the Colombian president vividly described. 

“You are here in one of the most unequal cities in the world,” he declared. “Outside of the walled city, a few steps from the millionaire dachaus, you’ll find the poor neighborhoods of Colombia’s former slaves.  Draw a map of the ATMs, and you’ll also find the private hospitals and clinics – beyond which a huge proportion of the population has been left behind.”

Against that landscape of stark contrasts between rich and poor, the challenges for Colombia to weaning itself away from the oil economy are all the more daunting, he said. Beyond the view of the luxury yaughts anchored in the city’s marinas, off shore oil rigs line the Pacific coast, providing the second largest source of income for the region after tourism. 

Dirty diesel remain the dominant energy source for transport, and the results are palpable in the smoke belching from tourist buses and trucks that clog Cartagena’s city center. Despite the acclaim that Bogota received several decades ago for its pioneering urban bus rapid transit system, initiatives to shift to cleaner fuels have so far stalled, thanks to oil industry pressures.

“There is no electric bus transport,” Petro declared, describing efforts underway now to change that.

Criminal gangs continue to deforest parts of Colombia’s Amazon region, changing rainfall patterns and watersheds so dramatically that rivers around Bogota have dried up entirely and the capital city faces chronic water shortages. But the poverty driving such illegal land grabs is also a legacy of the colonial era, which robbed peasants of farmland and left them landless, the president pointed out. 

A transition to clean energy, and steps to restore deforested parts of Amazonia are critical “preventive” health policies that are critical to stabilizing planetary systems, and staving off the next “pandemic” leap of animal viruses to humans, Petro asserted. 

“Better nutrition, physical exercise and clean air are critical to prevention,” he said.  “And stronger preventive health systems are critical to combat new viruses coming due to climate change,” he said. “But in prevention there is no business incentive.  The market makes money on diseases, not preventing them.

“The planet is becoming warmer, but that’s not because of humanity, that is the poor people, it’s because of big capital imposing itself on the world, because of greed…. Decarbonization, to stop using coal, oil and gas, means a change in the powers of production; it won’t happen just because of politically correct declarations,” he added. 

“Some 34 deaths out of every 100,000 in Colombia are due to air pollution – more than by murder – and Colombia has one of the highest murder rates in the world. We are dying from our own air …because of greed.” 

Image Credits: HP Watch .