Air pollution remains a most pressing environmental health threat
By Jim McFie
On Wednesday 12th May 2021, I attended an international seminar organized by the Association ofChartered Certified Accountants. As the seminar came to an end, two ladies in the UK, the host and her assistant, both stated categorically that the biggest challenge that the world faces at the present time is ‘climate change’. In today’s “Daily Nation” there is a full two page center-piece entitled “’Harmless things you do that lead to global warming”. I have just read an article entitled “IEA: Net-Zero Goal Means No More New Oil and Gas Investment Ever”. The IEA is the International Energy Agency: it has just published a 224 page document entitled “Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector”. In summary, it states that the world doesn’t need any new investments in oil and gas beyond what is already approved if it hopes to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and that the road to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius involves a rapid and radical shift away from fossil fuels President Biden has labelled climate change an “existential threat”: that is, if we do not do something about climate change, the human race may be wiped off the face of the earth. The IEA stresses that we are approaching a decisive moment for international efforts to tackle the climate crisis: the IEA states that this crisis is a great challenge of these times – not quite the “greatest challenge of our times” as stated by the two ladies referred to above. The number of countries that have pledged to reach net—zero emissions by mid century or soon after continues to grow, but so do global greenhouse gas emissions.
In summary, it states that the world doesn’t need any new investments in oil and gas
beyond what is already approved if it hopes to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and that
the road to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius involves a rapid and radical shift
away from fossil fuels.
In the US, on the twentieth of January 2021, John Forbes Kerry was sworn in the US’s first Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and the first-ever Principal to sit on the National Security Council entirely
dedicated to climate change. President Biden announced Kerry would have a seat at every table around the world as he combats the climate crisis to meet the “existential threat” that we face. still dangerously high,” the report said. In 2020, South Asia endured some of the world’s worst air quality on record, it said. Last year, Delhi’s 20 million residents, who breathed some of the cleanest air on record in the summer months due to the lockdown curbs, battled toxic air in winter, following a sharp increase in farm fire incidents in the neighbouring state of Punjab. As the burning of crop stubble peaked, Delhi’s PM2.5 levels averaged 144 micrograms per cubic metre in November 2020 and 157 micrograms per cubic metre in December 2020,
exceeding the World Health Organization’s annual exposure guideline by more than 14 times, it said.
In the US, on the twentieth of January 2021, John Forbes Kerry was sworn in the US’s first Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and the first-ever Principal to sit on the National Security Council entirely dedicated to climate change. President Biden announced Kerry would have a seat at every table around the world as he combats the climate crisis to meet the “existential threat” that we face.
