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Luanda – O fundista queniano Isaac Chebuyo venceu hoje, em Luanda, a primeira edição da Meia Maratona da Paz, em 21.0975 km, disputada por algumas ruas da capital do país.
In the female sector, the victory went to Ethiopia’s Yalemget Mekuriyaw.
Source: Angola Press News Agency
The World Health Organization reports 13 million people die every year from environmental causes, including more than seven million who are killed each year from exposure to air pollution.
New data released by the World Health Organization confirms that practically the whole world is breathing in unhealthy air. The WHO is calling for urgent action to curb the use of fossil fuels to reduce air pollution levels. This, it says threatens the health of billions of people, leading to the preventable deaths of millions.
Sophie Gumy is technical officer in WHO’s department of environment, climate change and health. She says the data show air quality is poorest notably in the eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asian, and African regions.
“Most of the seven million deaths, they come from low and middle-income countries, indeed they do,” Gumy said. “That does not mean that the high-income countries are not impacted. You know we are using mortality to calculate the impact of air pollution on health. However, we are very much aware that you should actually count for morbidity — all the disease that it creates…There are a lot of costs associated with air pollution, which are not necessarily captured in the deaths.”
The WHO report says significant harm is being done by even low levels of many air pollutants. It says particulate matter can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream. This can cause cardiovascular disease, stroke, and respiratory impacts. It says nitrogen oxide or NO2 can cause asthma and other respiratory diseases.
The director of WHO’s department of environment, climate change and health, Maria Neira, says particulate matter can affect almost every organ in the body. She calls this a major health issue, one which overlaps with the causes of climate change. As such, she says the causes of air pollution should be tackled in a similar fashion.
“We need to accelerate the transition to clean, modern, sustainable renewable sources of energy,” Neira said. “I think we will all agree that our dependence on fossil fuels for generating our energy, needs to change if we want to protect our health.
WHO recommends measures including building safe and affordable public transport systems, implementing stricter vehicle emissions, investing in energy-efficient housing and power generation, and improving industry and municipal waste management.
Source: Voice of America
The United Nations’ top climate body says drastic measures, including significant cuts in fossil fuel use, are necessary to contain global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures.
Monday’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed that the world is “on a fast track to climate disaster” and that governments and organizations have engaged in “a litany of broken climate promises,” said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
“It is a file of shame, cataloguing the empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unlivable world,” he said in a video message released alongside the report.
Guterres said the world’s current trajectory is global warming of more than double the 1.5-degree limit agreed at climate talks in Paris in 2015.
To keep the 1.5-degree limit within reach, he said that the world would need to cut global emissions by 45% this decade.
The 2,800-page report said only such severe emissions cuts this decade could turn the situation around. Even then, it said such measures would need to be combined with governments planting more trees and developing technologies that could remove some of the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere.
“It’s now or never,” IPCC report co-chair James Skea said in a statement with the report.
“Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible,” he added.
The report said that in the next three years — by 2025 — the world would need to stop greenhouse gas emissions from rising further to be on track to reach the Paris goals. If current policies continue, the report said, the 1.5-degree target will be “beyond reach,” and it will be harder after 2030 to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius.
Guterres put the blame on governments and businesses but did not single out individual countries.
“Some government and business leaders are saying one thing but doing another.”
“Simply put, they are lying,” he added. “And the results will be catastrophic.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the report “reveals how current global efforts to mitigate the climate crisis fall far short of what is needed” and that this will be a “decisive decade.”
He cited some of the report’s recommendations to halt climate change, from “improving energy efficiency, to halting and reversing global deforestation, to deploying more sustainable transportation and clean energy.” If countries take action now, he added, they can halve global emissions by 2030.
Source: Voice of America