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)