This dec­la­ra­tion is based on the data and con­cepts pre­sent­ed at the workshop:

Health of Peo­ple, Health of Plan­et and Our Responsibility

Cli­mate Change, Air Pol­lu­tion and Health

Orga­nized by the Pon­tif­i­cal Acad­e­my of Sciences
Casi­na Pio IV, Vat­i­can City, 2–4 Novem­ber 2017, Casi­na Pio IV

 

State­ment of the Problem

With unchecked cli­mate change and air pol­lu­tion, the very fab­ric of life on Earth, includ­ing that of humans, is at grave risk. We pro­pose scal­able solu­tions to avoid such cat­a­stroph­ic changes. There is less than a decade to put these solu­tions in place to pre­serve our qual­i­ty of life for gen­er­a­tions to come. The time to act is now.

We human beings are cre­at­ing a new and dan­ger­ous phase of Earth’s his­to­ry that has been termed the Anthro­pocene. The term refers to the immense effects of human activ­i­ty on all aspects of the Earth’s phys­i­cal sys­tems and on life on the plan­et. We are dan­ger­ous­ly warm­ing the plan­et, leav­ing behind the cli­mate in which civ­i­liza­tion devel­oped. With accel­er­at­ing cli­mate change, we put our­selves at grave risk of mas­sive crop fail­ures, new and re-emerg­ing infec­tious dis­eases, heat extremes, droughts, mega-storms, floods and sharply ris­ing sea lev­els. The eco­nom­ic activ­i­ties that con­tribute to glob­al warm­ing are also wreak­ing oth­er pro­found dam­ages, includ­ing air and water pol­lu­tion, defor­esta­tion, and mas­sive land degra­da­tion, caus­ing a rate of species extinc­tion unprece­dent­ed for the past 65 mil­lion years, and a dire threat to human health through increas­es in heart dis­ease, stroke, pul­monary dis­ease, men­tal health, infec­tions and can­cer. Cli­mate change threat­ens to exac­er­bate the cur­rent unprece­dent­ed flow of dis­place­ment of peo­ple and add to human mis­ery by stok­ing vio­lence and conflict.

The poor­est of the plan­et, who are still rely­ing on 19th cen­tu­ry tech­nolo­gies to meet basic needs such as cook­ing and heat­ing, are bear­ing a heavy brunt of the dam­ages caused by the eco­nom­ic activ­i­ties of the rich. The rich too are bear­ing heavy costs of increased flood­ing, mega-storms, heat extremes, droughts and major for­est fires. Cli­mate change and air pol­lu­tion strike down the rich and poor alike.

Prin­ci­pal Findings

• Burn­ing of fos­sil fuels and sol­id bio­mass release haz­ardous chem­i­cals to the air.
• Cli­mate change caused by fos­sil fuels and oth­er human activ­i­ties pos­es an exis­ten­tial threat to Homo sapi­ens and con­tributes to mass extinc­tion of species. In addi­tion, air pol­lu­tion caused by the same activ­i­ties is a major cause of pre­ma­ture death globally.

Sup­port­ing data are sum­ma­rized in the attached back­ground sec­tion. Cli­mate change and air pol­lu­tion are close­ly inter­linked because emis­sions of air pol­lu­tants and cli­mate-alter­ing green­house gas­es and oth­er pol­lu­tants arise large­ly from humanity’s use of fos­sil fuels and bio­mass fuels, with addi­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions from agri­cul­ture and land-use change. This inter­link­age mul­ti­plies the costs aris­ing from our cur­rent dan­ger­ous tra­jec­to­ry, yet it can also ampli­fy the ben­e­fits of a rapid tran­si­tion to sus­tain­able ener­gy and land use. An inte­grat­ed plan to dras­ti­cal­ly reduce cli­mate change and air pol­lu­tion is essential.

• Regions that have reduced air pol­lu­tion have achieved marked improve­ments in human health as a result.

We have already emit­ted enough pol­lu­tants to warm the cli­mate to dan­ger­ous lev­els (warm­ing by 1.5°C or more). The warm­ing as well as the droughts caused by cli­mate change, com­bined with the unsus­tain­able use of aquifers and sur­face water, pose grave threats to avail­abil­i­ty of fresh water and food secu­ri­ty. By mov­ing rapid­ly to a zero-car­bon ener­gy sys­tem – replac­ing coal, oil and gas with wind, solar, geot­her­mal and oth­er zero-car­bon ener­gy sources, dras­ti­cal­ly reduc­ing emis­sions of all oth­er cli­mate alter­ing pol­lu­tants and by adopt­ing sus­tain­able land use prac­tices, human­i­ty can pre­vent cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change, while cut­ting the huge dis­ease bur­den caused by air pol­lu­tion and cli­mate change.

• We advo­cate a mit­i­ga­tion approach that fac­tors in the low prob­a­bil­i­ty-high impact warm­ing pro­jec­tions such as the one in twen­ty chances of a 6°C warm­ing by 2100.

Pro­posed Solutions

We declare that gov­ern­ments and oth­er stake­hold­ers should urgent­ly under­take the scal­able and prac­ti­cal solu­tions list­ed below:

1. Health must be cen­tral to poli­cies that sta­bi­lize cli­mate change below dan­ger­ous lev­els, dri­ve zero-car­bon as well as zero-air pol­lu­tion and pre­vent ecosys­tem disruptions.

2. All nations should imple­ment with urgency the glob­al com­mit­ments made in Agen­da 2030 (includ­ing the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals) and the Paris Cli­mate Agreement.

3. Decar­bonize the ener­gy sys­tem as ear­ly as pos­si­ble and no lat­er than mid-cen­tu­ry, shift­ing from coal, oil and gas to wind, solar, geot­her­mal and oth­er zero-car­bon ener­gy sources;

4. The rich not only expe­di­tious­ly shift to safe ener­gy and land use prac­tices, but also pro­vide financ­ing to the poor for the costs of adapt­ing to cli­mate change;

5. Rapid­ly reduce haz­ardous air pol­lu­tants, includ­ing the short-lived cli­mate pol­lu­tants methane, ozone, black car­bon, and hydro fluorocarbons;

6. End defor­esta­tion and degra­da­tion and restore degrad­ed lands to pro­tect bio­di­ver­si­ty, reduce car­bon emis­sions and to absorb atmos­pher­ic car­bon into nat­ur­al sinks;

7. In order to accel­er­ate decar­boniza­tion there should be effec­tive car­bon pric­ing informed by esti­mates of the social cost of car­bon, includ­ing the health effects of air pollution;

8. Pro­mote research and devel­op­ment of tech­nolo­gies to remove car­bon diox­ide direct­ly from the atmos­phere for deploy­ment if necessary;

9. Forge col­lab­o­ra­tion between health and cli­mate sci­ences to cre­ate a pow­er­ful alliance for sustainability;

10. Pro­mote behav­ioral changes ben­e­fi­cial for human health and pro­tec­tive of the envi­ron­ment such as increased con­sump­tion of plant-based diets;

11. Edu­cate and empow­er the young to become the lead­ers of sus­tain­able development;

12. Pro­mote an alliance with soci­ety that brings togeth­er sci­en­tists, pol­i­cy mak­ers, health­care providers, faith/​spiritual lead­ers, com­mu­ni­ties and foun­da­tions to fos­ter the soci­etal trans­for­ma­tion nec­es­sary to achieve our goals in the spir­it of Pope Francis’s encycli­cal Lauda­to Si’.

To imple­ment these 12 solu­tions, we call on health pro­fes­sion­als to: engage, edu­cate and advo­cate for cli­mate mit­i­ga­tion and under­take pre­ven­tive pub­lic health actions vis-à-vis air pol­lu­tion and cli­mate change; inform the pub­lic of the high health risks of air pol­lu­tion and cli­mate change. The health sec­tor should assume its oblig­a­tion in shap­ing a healthy future. We call for a sub­stan­tial improve­ment in ener­gy effi­cien­cy; and elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of the glob­al vehi­cle fleet and all oth­er down­stream uses of fos­sil fuels. Ensure clean ener­gy ben­e­fits also pro­tect society’s most vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties. There are numer­ous liv­ing lab­o­ra­to­ries includ­ing tens of cities, many uni­ver­si­ties, Chile, Cal­i­for­nia and Swe­den, who have embarked on a path­way to cut both air pol­lu­tion and cli­mate change. These thriv­ing mod­els have already cre­at­ed 8 mil­lion jobs in a low car­bon econ­o­my, enhanced the well­be­ing of their cit­i­zens and shown that such mea­sures can both sus­tain eco­nom­ic growth and deliv­er tan­gi­ble health ben­e­fits for their citizens.

Acknowl­edge­ments

We espe­cial­ly thank the glob­al lead­ers who spoke at the work­shop: Hon­or­able Jer­ry Brown, Gov­er­nor of Cal­i­for­nia, Hon­or­able Gov­er­nor Alber­to Rodríguez Saá, the Gov­er­nor of San Luis, Argenti­na, Hon­or­able Dr. Marce­lo Mena, Min­is­ter of Envi­ron­ment of Chile, Hon­or­able Kevin de León, Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore of Cal­i­for­nia Sen­ate, and Hon­or­able Scott Peters of the US house of representatives.

We also thank the con­tri­bu­tions of the faith lead­ers: Rev Lei­th Ander­son, Pres­i­dent of the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion for Evan­gel­i­cals, USA; Rev Alas­tair Red­fern, Bish­op of Der­by, UK; Rev Mitch Hes­cox, CEO of Evan­gel­i­cal Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work, USA. We thank Dr. Jere­my Far­rar, CEO of the Well­come Trust for his con­tri­bu­tions as a speak­er and for thought­ful edits of the document.

We acknowl­edge the major con­tri­bu­tions to the draft­ing of the dec­la­ra­tion by Drs: Maria Neira (WHO), Andy Haines (Lon­don School of Hygiene and Trop­i­cal Med­i­cine) and Jos Lelieveld (Max Planck Inst of Chem­istry, Mainz). For a list of speak­ers and pan­elists at the sym­po­sium, please see the agen­da of the meet­ing attached at the end of this document.

We are thank­ful to the spon­sors of the work­shop: Maria Neira of WHO; Drs Bess Mar­cus and Michael Pratt of Insti­tute of Pub­lic Health at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at San Diego; Drs Erminia Guarneri and Rau­ni King of the Mira­glo Foundation.

End of Declaration

What fol­lows is a sum­ma­ry of the data and con­cepts on air pol­lu­tion and cli­mate change as described at the work­shop; the last IPCC report pub­lished in 2013; and the new data that were pub­lished since 2013, includ­ing sev­er­al reports by the LANCET com­mis­sions and WHO.

The full dec­la­ra­tion with author names can be found here.

SIGNATORIES (Pon­tif­i­cal Acad­e­my of Sci­ence mem­bers underlined)

1. Mon­sign­or Marce­lo Sánchez Soron­do (PAS Chancellor)
2. Joachim von Braun (PAS Pres­i­dent & UOB)
3. Veer­ab­had­ran Ramanathan (PAS & UCSD)
4. Partha Das­gup­ta (PASS & CU)
5. Peter Raven (PAS & MBC)
6. Jef­frey Sachs (UN SDSN)
7. Edmund G. Brown Jr. (Gov­er­nor of California)
8. Kevin de León (Pres­i­dent of the Cal­i­for­nia State Senate)
9. The Rev. Mitchell C. Hes­cox (President/​CEO, The Evan­gel­i­cal Envi­ron­men­tal Network)
10. Wern­er Arber (PAS)
11. Yuan T. Lee (PAS)
12. John (Hans Joachim) Schellnhu­ber (PAS)
13. Igna­cio Rodríguez Iturbe (PAS & Dis­tin­guished Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­fes­sor and TEES Dis­tin­guished Research Pro­fes­sor, Texas A&M University)
14. Fran­cis L. Del­moni­co (PAS)
15. Dr. Wael Al-Delaimy (UCSD Insti­tute for Pub­lic Health)
16. Fon­na For­man (UCSD Cen­ter on Glob­al Justice)
17. Erminia M Guarneri (Pres­i­dent Acad­e­my of Inte­gra­tive Health and Med­i­cine, Trea­sur­er Mira­glo Foundation)
18. Howard Frumkin (Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton School of Pub­lic Health)
19. Ulrich Pöschl (Max Planck Insti­tute for Chemistry)
20. Daniel M. Kam­men (Pro­fes­sor of Ener­gy, UC Berkeley)
21. Nithya Ramanathan (Nexleaf Analytics)
22. Marce­lo M. Suárez-Oroz­co, UCLA Wasser­man Dean & Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Education
23. Bess H. Mar­cus (Dean, Brown Uni­ver­si­ty School of Pub­lic Health)
24. Jonathan M. Samet (Dean, Col­orado School of Pub­lic Health)
25. Glen G. Scorgie (Pro­fes­sor of The­ol­o­gy and Ethics, Bethel Sem­i­nary San Diego)
26. Con­ra­do Estol (Direc­tor, Heart and Brain Med­i­cine ‑MECyC, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
27. Edward Maibach (George Mason University)