AFP UK

The World Health Organization strengthened its air quality guidelines on Wednesday, saying air pollution was now one of the biggest environmental threats to human health, causing seven million premature deaths a year.

It said urgent action was needed to reduce exposure to air pollution, ranking its burden of disease on a par with smoking and unhealthy eating.

“WHO has adjusted almost all the air quality guideline levels downwards, warning that exceeding the new… levels is associated with significant risks to health,” it said.

“Adhering to them could save millions of lives.”

The guidelines aim to protect people from the adverse effects of air pollution and are used by governments as a reference for legally-binding standards.

The UN health agency last issued air quality guidelines, or AQGs, in 2005, which had a significant impact on pollution abatement policies worldwide.

However, the WHO said in the 16 years since, a much stronger body of evidence had emerged, showing how air pollution impacts on health at lower concentrations than previously understood.

“The accumulated evidence is sufficient to justify actions to reduce population exposure to key air pollutants, not only in particular countries or regions but on a global scale,” the organisation said.

– Southeast Asia hard-hit –

The new guidelines come just in time for the COP26 global climate summit held in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12.

The WHO said that alongside climate change, air pollution was one of the biggest environmental threats to human health. Improving air quality would enhance climate change mitigation efforts, and vice versa, it said.

The WHO’s new guidelines recommend air quality levels for six pollutants, including ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide.

The other two are PM10 and PM2.5 — particulate matter equal or smaller than 10 and 2.5 microns in diameter.

Both are capable of penetrating deep into the lungs but research shows PM2.5 can even enter the bloodstream, primarily resulting in cardiovascular and respiratory problems, but also affecting other organs, said the WHO.

In response, the PM2.5 guideline level has been halved.

In 2019, more than 90 percent of the world’s population lived in areas where concentrations exceeded the 2005 AQG for long-term PM2.5 exposure. Southeast Asia is the worst-affected region.

– Premature deaths –

“Air pollution is a threat to health in all countries, but it hits people in low- and middle-income countries the hardest,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The WHO said that while air quality had markedly improved since the 1990s in high-income countries, the global toll in deaths and lost years of healthy life had barely declined, as air quality had generally deteriorated in most other countries, in line with their economic development.

“Every year, exposure to air pollution is estimated to cause seven million premature deaths and result in the loss of millions more healthy years of life,” the WHO said.

In children, this could include reduced lung growth and function, respiratory infections and aggravated asthma.

In adults, ischaemic heart disease — also called coronary heart disease — and stroke are the most common causes of premature death attributable to outdoor air pollution.

Evidence is also emerging of other effects such as diabetes and neurodegenerative conditions, the organisation said.

The WHO said the burden of disease attributable to air pollution was “on a par with other major global health risks such as unhealthy diet and tobacco smoking”.

The World Health Organization strengthened its air quality guidelines on Wednesday, saying air pollution was now one of the biggest environmental threats to human health, causing seven million premature deaths a year.

It said urgent action was needed to reduce exposure to air pollution, ranking its burden of disease on a par with smoking and unhealthy eating.

“WHO has adjusted almost all the air quality guideline levels downwards, warning that exceeding the new… levels is associated with significant risks to health,” it said.

“Adhering to them could save millions of lives.”

The guidelines aim to protect people from the adverse effects of air pollution and are used by governments as a reference for legally-binding standards.

The UN health agency last issued air quality guidelines, or AQGs, in 2005, which had a significant impact on pollution abatement policies worldwide.

However, the WHO said in the 16 years since, a much stronger body of evidence had emerged, showing how air pollution impacts on health at lower concentrations than previously understood.

“The accumulated evidence is sufficient to justify actions to reduce population exposure to key air pollutants, not only in particular countries or regions but on a global scale,” the organisation said.

– Southeast Asia hard-hit –

The new guidelines come just in time for the COP26 global climate summit held in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12.

The WHO said that alongside climate change, air pollution was one of the biggest environmental threats to human health. Improving air quality would enhance climate change mitigation efforts, and vice versa, it said.

The WHO’s new guidelines recommend air quality levels for six pollutants, including ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide.

The other two are PM10 and PM2.5 — particulate matter equal or smaller than 10 and 2.5 microns in diameter.

Both are capable of penetrating deep into the lungs but research shows PM2.5 can even enter the bloodstream, primarily resulting in cardiovascular and respiratory problems, but also affecting other organs, said the WHO.

In response, the PM2.5 guideline level has been halved.

In 2019, more than 90 percent of the world’s population lived in areas where concentrations exceeded the 2005 AQG for long-term PM2.5 exposure. Southeast Asia is the worst-affected region.

– Premature deaths –

“Air pollution is a threat to health in all countries, but it hits people in low- and middle-income countries the hardest,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The WHO said that while air quality had markedly improved since the 1990s in high-income countries, the global toll in deaths and lost years of healthy life had barely declined, as air quality had generally deteriorated in most other countries, in line with their economic development.

“Every year, exposure to air pollution is estimated to cause seven million premature deaths and result in the loss of millions more healthy years of life,” the WHO said.

In children, this could include reduced lung growth and function, respiratory infections and aggravated asthma.

In adults, ischaemic heart disease — also called coronary heart disease — and stroke are the most common causes of premature death attributable to outdoor air pollution.

Evidence is also emerging of other effects such as diabetes and neurodegenerative conditions, the organisation said.

The WHO said the burden of disease attributable to air pollution was “on a par with other major global health risks such as unhealthy diet and tobacco smoking”.

Nearly 2,500 rare rhino horns were destroyed Wednesday in the first ceremony of its kind in northeastern India as part of an anti-poaching drive to mark World Rhino Day.

The endangered one-horned rhinoceros used to be widespread in the region but hunting and habitat loss have slashed its numbers to just a few thousand, with most now found in India’s Assam state.

Trade in rhino horn has been banned since 1977 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

But conservationists warn poaching attempts continue amid demand from China and Vietnam, rhino horn is promoted as a wonder ingredient in traditional medicine.

“A rhino horn has supreme value only when it is intact to the living rhino. These horns have no value,” Assam’s Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said during the ceremony in the town of Bokakhat.

“With today’s action, Assam wants to send two messages — that we don’t believe that rhino horns have any medicinal value and that we only believe in preserving the living rhinos.”

The town is near the UNESCO-listed heritage site Kaziranga National Park, home to more than 2,000 one-horned rhinos — the world’s biggest population.

At the ceremony, horns were carefully placed in layers in several large furnaces before being set alight, sending plumes of smoke into the air above fierce orange flames.

The animal parts — which contain keratin, the same protein  as comes in human hair and nails — had been kept in storage by the government since 1969.

Some of the horns had been seized from poachers. Others were removed from rhinos that had died of natural causes.

All rhino deaths in the state are recorded by local police.

Before the ceremony, officials extracted DNA from each horn and gave each animal part a unique ID number to create a gene database for scientific studies and conservation efforts.

Assam’s Forest and Environment Minister Parimal Suklabaidya added that 94 horns were also set aside and would be kept for heritage purposes.

The International Rhino Foundation said on Monday in its annual report that two of the herbivores were killed by poachers in Assam in 2020.

But the global body added that rhino poaching deaths have been declining in recent years amid conservation efforts in India and neighbouring Nepal.

The population of the one-horned creatures had grown to more than 3,700 after plunging to just 100 in the early 1900s, it added.

The vast wall of molten lava creeping down the slopes of Spain’s La Palma island has destroyed 320 buildings and over 154 hectares of land, Europe’s volcano observatory said Wednesday. 

The property damage figure was twice that given 24 hours ago by Copernicus, which uses sky radar imagery to monitor the extent of lava coverage and posted the update on Twitter. 

The Cumbre Vieja volcano, which erupted on Sunday, straddles a ridge in the south of La Palma, one of seven islands that make up the Canary Islands, Spain’s Atlantic archipelago which lies off the coast of Morocco.

Experts are expecting the scale of damages to rise in the coming hours as the slow-moving but unstoppable mass of white-hot rock, slides towards the island’s western coast. 

“In the last few hours it has slowed down a lot, it is now moving at 300 metres (984 feet) an hour, maybe less, because it is reaching a very flat area but it is gaining height,” David Calvo, an expert with the Involcan volcanology institute, told AFPTV.

“There are areas where it is already 15 metres thick.”

If the lava — which has a temperature of 1,100 degrees Celsius (2,012 degrees Fahrenheit) — continues to move at the same pace, it will reach the sea later on Wednesday or possibly Thursday, he said, warning it would have an explosive effect.

“There will be a huge battle between the water and the lava. With those contrasting temperatures, it causes massive explosions and a fragmentation of the lava which shoots out like missiles.” 

The eruption on this island of some 85,000 people, the first in 50 years, has forced some 6,000 people out of their homes, but so far nobody has been injured.

Involcan believes the eruption of La Cumbre Vieja could last “between 24 and 84 days”.

“Dealing with this crisis won’t end when the lava reaches the sea,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Tuesday. 

“It will end when we’ve managed to rebuild everything the volcano has destroyed and will destroy.”

Scientists have discovered another clue to the origins of the virus that causes Covid-19, with bats living in caves in Laos found to be carrying a similar pathogen that experts suggest could potentially infect humans directly.

The virus has killed millions since it emerged in China in late 2019, and controversy continues to swirl around where it came from.

Some experts say it is animal-driven but others have pointed to the possibility the pathogen leaked from a lab.

Researchers from France’s Pasteur Institute and the National University of Laos said their findings showed that viruses genetically close to the SARS-CoV-2 virus “exist in nature” among bat species in the limestone caves of northern Laos, which neighbours China.

Of the viruses they identified among the hundreds of bats tested in Vientiane Province, three were found to closely resemble the virus that causes Covid-19, particularly in the mechanism for latching on to human cells. 

“The idea was to try to identify the origin of this pandemic,” Marc Eloit, who leads the Pasteur Institute’s pathogen discovery laboratory, told AFP. 

Eloit, whose team analysed the samples collected, said there were still key differences between the viruses found and SARS-CoV-2. 

But he said the work was “a major step forward” in identifying the pandemic’s origin, confirming the theory that the coronavirus that has spread across the world could have started with living bats. 

The authors of the study, which has been submitted to Nature for peer review, warned that their findings suggest the new viruses “seem to have the same potential for infecting humans as early strains of SARS-CoV-2”. 

“People working in caves, such as guano collectors, or certain ascetic religious communities who spend time in or very close to caves, as well as tourists who visit the caves, are particularly at risk of being exposed,” the authors said.

– ‘Natural spillover’ –

International experts sent to China by the World Health Organization (WHO) in January concluded that it was most likely that the SARS-CoV-2 virus jumped from bats to humans via an intermediate animal. 

A competing hypothesis that the virus leaked from a lab like the specialised virology laboratory in Wuhan was deemed “extremely unlikely”, although it has yet to be ruled out.

Martin Hibbert, Professor of Emerging Infectious Disease at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine — who was not involved in the Laos research — said the most closely related virus was found to be able to infect human cells “as easily” as SARS-CoV-2 and therefore might be capable of infecting humans. 

But he stressed that the virus is “not an ancestor of the pandemic strain”.    

“This work confirms the expected diverse nature of bat infecting coronaviruses and increases the evidence that natural spill-over events from bats to humans can occur,” said Hibbert.  

The authors of the Laos study, which has been posted on the site Research Square, said their results suggest the pandemic coronavirus potentially evolved through mixing between different viruses and species of bats. 

James Wood, Head of Department of Veterinary Medicine at University of Cambridge — who was also not involved in the research — said it suggests “recombination between different viruses was likely involved, rather than there being a simple evolution of a single lineage over a long period”.

In a comment to the Science Media Centre he said this not only underscores the likely role played by bats and perhaps other animals living closely together, but also shows the “risks inherent in living wildlife trade”, where markets can help drive cross-species zoonotic transmission.

A team of Omani cavers has made what is believed to be the first descent to the bottom of Yemen’s fabled Well of Barhout — a natural wonder shunned by many locals, who believe it is a prison for genies.

The forbidding ‘Well of Hell’, whose dark, round aperture creates a 30-metre (100 foot) wide hole in the desert floor of Yemen’s eastern province of Al-Mahra, plunges approximately 112 metres (367 feet) below the surface and, according to some accounts, gives off strange odours.

Inside, the Oman Cave Exploration Team (OCET) found snakes, dead animals and cave pearls — but no signs of the supernatural.

“There were snakes, but they won’t bother you unless you bother them,” Mohammed al-Kindi, a geology professor at the German University of Technology in Oman, told AFP.

Kindi was among eight experienced cavers who rappelled down last week, while two colleagues remained at the surface. 

Footage provided to AFP showed cave formations and grey and lime-green cave pearls, formed by dripping water.

“Passion drove us to do this, and we felt that this is something that will reveal a new wonder and part of Yemeni history,” said Kindi, who also owns a mining and petroleum consultancy firm.  

“We collected samples of water, rocks, soil and some dead animals but have yet to have them analysed,” he said, adding that a report will soon be made public.

“There were dead birds, which does create some bad odours, but there was no overwhelming bad smell.”

Yemeni officials told AFP in June that they did not know what lay in the depths of the pit, which they estimated to be “millions and millions” of years old, adding that they had never reached the bottom.

“We have gone to visit the area and entered the well, reaching more than 50-60 metres down,” Salah Babhair, director general of Mahra’s geological survey and mineral resources authority, said at the time. 

“We noticed strange things inside. We also smelled something strange… It’s a mysterious situation.”

Over the centuries, stories have circulated of malign figures known as jinns or genies living in the well, which some regard as the gate of hell.

Many residents of the area are uneasy about visiting the vast pit or even talking about it, for fear of ill fortune.

Yemenis have had enough bad luck as it is.

The country has been embroiled in a devastating civil war since 2014 that has triggered what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with two-thirds of its 30-million population dependent on some form of aid.

South Sudanese refugee Dawood Kour fled to Sudan to turn the page on a life of displacement, only to be forced onto the streets once more after floodwaters submerged his rickety shelter. 

Kour crossed the border in November, fleeing years of conflict in his home city of Malakal — itself prone to flooding. 

South Sudan became the world’s newest independent nation in 2011, seceding from Sudan. But in late 2013, it plunged into a devastating, five-year civil war that it has yet to fully recover from. 

Since fleeing, Kour had lived in the Al-Qanaa camp, a growing community of around 35,000 refugees in the Al-Jabalain district of White Nile state. 

But this month, Kour was displaced yet again as floodwaters inundated the camp. He moved to the nearest patch of dry land he could find — the roadside. 

The waters rose so fast that “we had no time to collect our belongings,” Kour told AFP. “We only carried our children.” 

“We now have no food, medication or anything to fight the swarms of mosquitoes.” 

Over 288,000 residents and refugees have been affected in Sudan where heavy rains and flash floods have hit 13 of the 18 states, according to the United Nations. 

Humanitarian needs have swelled, and been exacerbated by the disaster in neighbouring South Sudan too, where the deluge has affected and displaced about 426,000 people, the UN said. 

In Sudan, thousands of refugees were relocated to different camps, while others took shelter in villages that were spared, but many are now living on the streets.

“They have become homeless,” said Ibrahim Mohamed, a senior official at Sudan’s refugee commission.

“We are facing a serious challenge of finding new land to relocate them to.” 

– No food, shelter –

Torrential rains pummel Sudan annually between June and October. 

The downpours often leave the country grappling with severe flooding that wrecks properties, infrastructure and crops. 

Last year, Sudan declared a three-month state of emergency as flooding that the UN has called the country’s worst in a century left around 140 people dead and 900,000 affected. 

So far this year, the floods have killed more than 80 people nationwide and damaged or destroyed around 35,000 homes, according to Sudanese authorities. 

In the Al-Jabalain district, neither Sudanese villagers nor the refugees were prepared for the inundation. 

“Villagers say they have not witnessed such floods in 40 years,” said Anwar Abushura, the head of Al-Qanaa camp. 

Refugees desperately built a rudimentary dirt barrier to try to protect their shelters, Kour said.

“But the water arrived at such a fast pace, and the flood barrier collapsed within two days,” he said. 

Many refugees had to make their way through the stagnant floodwater to salvage building materials and belongings from the collapsed shelters. 

“We have no food or even rugs to sleep on,” said refugee David Bedi, 45, whose shelter was engulfed. 

“We just want to build roofs over our children’s heads.” 

– ‘Little chance’ –

Aid workers have warned of a looming outbreak of diseases among the doubly displaced refugees.

AFP saw some people bathing in the floodwater and using it to fill drinking containers. 

Al-Qanaa camp head Abushura said they were expecting a “medical disaster”. 

Around 150 refugees from Al-Qanaa and the nearby Al-Alagaya camp, including children, were diagnosed with malaria on Monday, according to figures compiled by Sudan’s refugee commission.

Darquos Manuel, 32, said food had been spoilt, “mosquitoes are eating the children and the rains continue to pour down even as we live on the streets”.

“There is little chance for survival under these conditions,” he said.  

At Al-Alagaya camp, where many refugees were relocated, Nagwa James pointed to shelters that had buckled under the relentless torrents of water.

“We fear… we will get flooded the same way Al-Qanaa did,” the South Sudanese refugee said.

Conditions were already poor, “mosquitoes are everywhere and there are a lot of infections”, she added.

Mohamed Ali Abuselib, head of the camp, said refugees had been moved from low-lying areas.

But most are in the open, he added, “and we are expecting more floods”. 

China will stop funding coal projects overseas, President Xi Jinping announced Tuesday, all but ending the flow of public aid for the dirty energy contributing to the climate crisis.

Xi made his announcement at the UN General Assembly where US President Joe Biden, seeking to show leadership in a growing competition with China, promised to double Washington’s contribution to countries hardest hit by climate change.

China is still investing in coal, reducing the impact of Xi’s commitment, but it is by far the largest funder of coal projects in developing countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh as it goes on a global infrastructure-building blitz with its Belt and Road Initiative.

Xi vowed to accelerate efforts for China, the world’s largest emitter, to go carbon neutral by 2060.

“This requires tremendous hard work and we will make every effort to meet these goals,” Xi said in a recorded address.

“China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low carbon energy and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad,” he said.

China’s announcement follows similar moves by South Korea and Japan, the only other nations that offered significant funds for coal projects.

The climate advocacy movement 350.org called Xi’s announcement “huge,” saying it could be a “real game-changer” depending on when it takes effect.

Helen Mountford, vice president for climate and economics at the World Resources Institute, said it was “a historic turning point away from the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel.”

“China’s pledge shows that the firehose of international public financing for coal is being turned off,” she said.

But she said that private investors needed to make similar commitments. And she noted that China itself is still stepping up coal, an industry with political clout in the Asian power as well as the United States.

On a visit to China earlier this month, US climate envoy John Kerry said the addition of more coal plants “represents a significant challenge to the efforts of the world to deal with the climate crisis.”

China brought 38.4 gigawatts of new coal-fired power into operation last year — more than three times what was brought on line globally.

Non-governmental groups in a letter earlier this year said the state-run Bank of China was the largest single financier of coal projects, pumping $35 billion since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2015.

– Biden promises more aid –

China’s promise comes as momentum builds ahead of a UN conference in November in Glasgow which aims to raise the ambitions of the Paris accord.

Support for action has been growing with the planet breaking record after record on high temperatures and witnessing devastating severe weather linked to climate change including fires, severe storms and flooding.

One key section of the Paris accord that has lagged behind is mobilizing the $100 billion a year promised for nations hardest hit by global warming.

Biden, who has put the environment high on his agenda after defeating his predecessor, climate change skeptic Donald Trump, said the United States will double its contribution.

“This will make the United States a leader in public climate finance,” Biden said.

Experts said that the announcement would take the American contribution to approximately $11.4 billion annually.

British lawmaker Alok Sharma, who will preside over the so-called COP26 conference in Glasgow, hailed Biden’s announcement and said: “We must build on this momentum.”

Currently, two-thirds of the funding is for mitigation — reducing climate change — rather than adjusting to current and expected future changes, such as sea-level encroachment, more intense extreme weather events or food insecurity.

In another climate announcement at the General Assembly, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would formally ratify the Paris agreement, which it earlier had only signed.

The developments amount to rare pieces of good news on the climate front following a slew of high-level scientific reports painting a bleak future picture, as the world’s top polluters continue to spew greenhouse gases at alarming rates.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “encouraged” by the “important” US and Chinese announcements but warned that far more needed to be done to address climate change.

Last week Guterres warned the world was on a “catastrophic” path to 2.7 degrees Celsius heating according to a new study by UN scientists.

The figure would shatter the temperature targets of the Paris climate agreement, which aimed for warming well below 2C and preferably capped at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Tuesday that Turkey was ready to finally ratify the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Erdogan’s announcement at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly followed a year of violent weather events in Turkey — including wildfires and flash floods — that have claimed some 100 lives.

Turkey in April 2016 signed the landmark agreement on limiting the dangerous emissions that contribute to global warming, which scientists blame for increasingly extreme and more frequent weather events.

But it has yet to formally ratify the accord by a vote in parliament.

Erdogan told the UN General Assembly that Turkey now intends to complete the ratification process in time for the November UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

“I would like to announce to the whole world here from the United Nations General Assembly the decision we have taken following the progress made within the framework of the agreement. We plan to submit the Paris Climate Agreement for approval to our parliament next month,” Erdogan said.

“Before the United Nations climate change conference, which will be held in Glasgow, we envisage the ratification phase of the carbon-neutral targeted agreement.”

– ‘Respect balance of nature’ –

Erdogan has come under intense political pressure at home for his handling of deadly wildfires and flash floods that hit Turkey’s southern Mediterranean resort regions and northern Black Sea coast in August.

The two disasters and an accompanying drought in Turkey’s southeast have pushed up the importance of environmental issues in the minds of voters — especially for younger generations.

Erdogan will need the support of millions of teens who will be voting for the first time when he tries to extend his rule into a third decade in a general election scheduled for no later than June 2023.

The powerful president devoted the entire closing section of his wide-ranging UN address — televised live on most Turkish news channels — to climate issues.

“While the Earth embraces millions of living species on its soil, it only expects us to respect the balance of nature in return for this generosity,” he said.

But he added that the world’s biggest polluter “should also make the greatest contribution to the fight against climate change”.

“Unlike the past, this time no one has the right to say: I am powerful, I do not pay the bill,” Erdogan said. “Because climate change treats mankind quite fairly.”

China will stop funding coal projects overseas, President Xi Jinping said Tuesday, ending a major source of support for a dirty energy contributing to climate change.

Addressing the UN General Assembly, Xi made the promise as he vowed to accelerate efforts to help the world battle the climate crisis.

“China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low carbon energy and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad,” Xi said in a pre-recorded address.

“We should foster new growth drivers in the post-Covid era and jointly achieve leapfrog development, staying committed to harmony between man and nature,” Xi said.

China has gone on an infrastructure-building blitz around the world as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, and until now has been open to coal projects.

In a letter earlier this year, a coalition of non-governmental groups said that the state-run Bank of China was the largest single financier of coal projects, pumping $35 billion since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2015.

China, however, has kept investing in coal at home, preserving a form of industry that is also politically sensitive in the United States.

China brought 38.4 gigawatts of new coal-fired power into operation last year — more than three times what was brought on line globally.

On a visit to China earlier this month, US climate envoy John Kerry said the United States has made it “clear that the addition of more coal plants represents a significant challenge to the efforts of the world to deal with the climate crisis.”

China has promised to peak coal consumption by 2030 and go carbon neutral by 2060.

China’s promise comes as momentum builds for a UN conference in November in Glasgow which aims to raise the ambitions of the Paris accord.