Assessing the Human Health Benefits of Climate Mitigation, Pollution Prevention, and Biodiversity Preservation.

Background: Since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has amassed great wealth and achieved unprecedented material prosperity. These advances have come, however, at great cost to the planet. They are guided by an economic model that focuses almost exclusively on short-term gain, while ignoring natural capital and human capital. They have relied on the combustion of vast quantities of fossil fuels, massive consumption of the earth's resources, and production and environmental release of enormous quantities of chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers, and plastics. They have caused climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, the "Triple Planetary Crisis". They are responsible for more than 9 million premature deaths per year and for widespread disease - impacts that fall disproportionately upon the poor and the vulnerable. Goals: To map the human health impacts of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. To outline a framework for assessing the health benefits of interventions against these threats. Findings: Actions taken by national governments and international agencies to mitigate climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss can improve health, prevent disease, save lives, and enhance human well-being. Yet assessment of health benefits is largely absent from evaluations of environmental remediation programs. This represents a lost opportunity to quantify the full benefits of environmental remediation and to educate policy makers and the public. Recommendations: We recommend that national governments and international agencies implementing interventions against climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss develop metrics and strategies for quantifying the health benefits of these interventions. We recommend that they deploy these tools in parallel with assessments of ecologic and economic benefits. Health metrics developed by the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study may provide a useful starting point.Incorporation of health metrics into assessments of environmental restoration will require building transdisciplinary collaborations. Environmental scientists and engineers will need to work with health scientists to establish evaluation systems that link environmental and economic data with health data. Such systems will assist international agencies as well as national and local governments in prioritizing environmental interventions.

Air pollution and development in Africa: impacts on health, the economy, and human capital.

BACKGROUND: Africa is undergoing both an environmental and an epidemiological transition. Household air pollution is the predominant form of air pollution, but it is declining, whereas ambient air pollution is increasing. We aimed to quantify how air pollution is affecting health, human capital, and the economy across Africa, with a particular focus on Ethiopia, Ghana, and Rwanda. METHODS: Data on household and ambient air pollution were from WHO Global Health Observatory, and data on morbidity and mortality were from the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Study. We estimated economic output lost due to air pollution-related disease by country, with use of labour income per worker, adjusted by the probability that a person (of a given age) was working. Losses were expressed in 2019 international dollars and as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP). We also quantified the contribution of particulate matter (PM)2·5 pollution to intelligence quotient (IQ) loss in children younger than 10 years, with use of an exposure-response coefficient based on previously published data. FINDINGS: Air pollution was responsible for 1·1 million deaths across Africa in 2019. Household air pollution accounted for 697 000 deaths and ambient air pollution for 394 000. Ambient air pollution-related deaths increased from 361 000 in 2015, to 383 000 in 2019, with the greatest increases in the most highly developed countries. The majority of deaths due to ambient air pollution are caused by non-communicable diseases. The loss in economic output in 2019 due to air pollution-related morbidity and mortality was $3·02 billion in Ethiopia (1·16% of GDP), $1·63 billion in Ghana (0·95% of GDP), and $349 million in Rwanda (1·19% of GDP). PM2·5 pollution was estimated to be responsible for 1·96 billion lost IQ points in African children in 2019. INTERPRETATION: Ambient air pollution is increasing across Africa. In the absence of deliberate intervention, it will increase morbidity and mortality, diminish economic productivity, impair human capital formation, and undercut development. Because most African countries are still early in development, they have opportunities to transition rapidly to wind and solar energy, avoiding a reliance on fossil fuel-based economies and minimising pollution. FUNDING: UN Environment Programme.

Improving and Expanding Estimates of the Global Burden of Disease Due to Environmental Health Risk Factors.

BACKGROUND: The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, coordinated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), produces influential, data-driven estimates of the burden of disease and premature death due to major risk factors. Expanded quantification of disease due to environmental health (EH) risk factors, including climate change, will enhance accuracy of GBD estimates, which will contribute to developing cost-effective policies that promote prevention and achieving Sustainable Development Goals. OBJECTIVES: We review key aspects of the GBD for the EH community and introduce the Global Burden of Disease-Pollution and Health Initiative (GBD-PHI), which aims to work with IHME and the GBD study to improve estimates of disease burden attributable to EH risk factors and to develop an innovative approach to estimating climate-related disease burden-both current and projected. METHODS: We discuss strategies for improving GBD quantification of specific EH risk factors, including air pollution, lead, and climate change. We highlight key methodological challenges, including new EH risk factors, notably evidence rating and global exposure assessment. DISCUSSION: A number of issues present challenges to the scope and accuracy of current GBD estimates for EH risk factors. For air pollution, minimal data exist on the exposure-risk relationships associated with high levels of pollution; epidemiological studies in high pollution regions should be a research priority. For lead, the GBD's current methods do not fully account for lead's impact on neurodevelopment; innovative methods to account for subclinical effects are needed. Decisions on inclusion of additional EH risk-outcome pairs need to be guided by findings of systematic reviews, the size of exposed populations, feasibility of global exposure estimates, and predicted trends in exposures and diseases. Neurotoxicants, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and climate-related factors should be high priorities for incorporation into upcoming iterations of the GBD study. Enhancing the scope and methods will improve the GBD's estimates and better guide prevention policy. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP5496.

Assessment of economic drivers of land use change in urban ecosystems of Delhi, India.

This paper describes the process of urbanization and land use change in the urban ecosystems of the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi, India. Two types of land use change are considered-from natural to urban and from agricultural to urban. Both types are explained in terms of economic variables known to be drivers of change. A panel data method was used, and economic variables were combined with GIS-based information on land use change during 1986-2004 for 11 administrative units of the NCR. The results suggest that investment in the construction sector plays a major role in converting the land from natural to urban areas, while differences in land productivity seems to be the major driver for change from agricultural to urban uses.

Greenhouse gas mitigation in agriculture.

Agricultural lands occupy 37% of the earth's land surface. Agriculture accounts for 52 and 84% of global anthropogenic methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Agricultural soils may also act as a sink or source for CO2, but the net flux is small. Many agricultural practices can potentially mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the most prominent of which are improved cropland and grazing land management and restoration of degraded lands and cultivated organic soils. Lower, but still significant mitigation potential is provided by water and rice management, set-aside, land use change and agroforestry, livestock management and manure management. The global technical mitigation potential from agriculture (excluding fossil fuel offsets from biomass) by 2030, considering all gases, is estimated to be approximately 5500-6000Mt CO2-eq.yr-1, with economic potentials of approximately 1500-1600, 2500-2700 and 4000-4300Mt CO2-eq.yr-1 at carbon prices of up to 20, up to 50 and up to 100 US$ t CO2-eq.-1, respectively. In addition, GHG emissions could be reduced by substitution of fossil fuels for energy production by agricultural feedstocks (e.g. crop residues, dung and dedicated energy crops). The economic mitigation potential of biomass energy from agriculture is estimated to be 640, 2240 and 16 000Mt CO2-eq.yr-1 at 0-20, 0-50 and 0-100 US$ t CO2-eq.-1, respectively.