海角大神

More than 5.5 million people die from air pollution each year, with more than 3 million of these deaths occurring in China and India, announced researchers Friday at the 2016 annual meeting for the American Association for the Advancement of Science.聽

鈥淎ir pollution is the fourth highest risk factor for death globally and by far the leading environmental risk factor for disease,鈥� said Dr. Michael Brauer, a professor at the University of British Columbia鈥檚 School of Population and Public Health in Vancouver, Canada, in a press release. 鈥淩educing air pollution is an incredibly efficient way to improve the health of a population.鈥澛�

In 2013, an estimated 1.6 million people died in China and 1.4 million died in India from poor air quality.聽

In the face of these troubling figures, China and India have both taken on new initiatives to address their air quality and decrease the millions of premature deaths each year. And the urgent action demanded by these large death tolls can speed up larger environmental protection efforts, say scientists.聽

鈥淎 couple of great things are happening in China,鈥� Dr. Brauer tells 海角大神 in a phone interview. 鈥淭hey have started to do measurements [of air quality] so we can track progress, and there is at least a leveling off of pollution levels 鈥撀燼nd maybe even a decrease, but it is too early to say for sure.鈥澛�

At the Paris climate talks, China vowed that 2030 would see emissions peak, beginning a future with 20 percent carbon-free electricity sources. 聽

鈥淚t looks like China is on the right path,鈥� Brauer tells The Monitor. 鈥淭he issue is how quickly can the levels come down?鈥�

And while some say China鈥檚 emission goals could be stronger, at least they are moving in the right direction.聽

鈥淭he levels in China in a place like Beijing today are eight to 10 times higher than the healthy standards set by the World Health Organization, so they have a long way to go,鈥� Dan Greenbaum, president of the Health Effects Institute in Boston, tells Voice of America. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e tightened their standards for new vehicles, they鈥檝e cleaned up their fuel, and they鈥檝e actually committed to capping and reducing their coal.鈥澛�

At the Paris climate talks, the Indian government pledged to reduce total emissions by 33-35 percent of 2005 levels by 2030, generate 40 percent of electricity from non-fossil fuel sources, and undertake aggressive reforestation efforts to absorb 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2030.聽

Going forward, 鈥渙ur every action will be cleaner than what it was earlier,鈥� India鈥檚 Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters in October after submitting his country鈥檚 climate pledge.聽

But the same stumbling-block continues to threaten both air quality improvement and larger climate change success in India: coal.

Bauer says household stoves, burning coal or animal dung, pollute family homes and collectively create a major obstacle for India's air-quality goals. 聽

鈥淚t鈥檚 not a centralized problem. It鈥檚 all over the country. And it鈥檚 not just a technological problem, it鈥檚 an issue of awareness,鈥� said Dr. Chandra Venkataraman, a chemical engineer who analyzed local pollution for the report, to the Washington Post.聽

Scientists hope that the 5.5 million deaths, while tragic and unnecessary, will catch global attention. Because air quality has immediate repercussions for global populations, efforts to decrease the millions of air quality deaths may push along broader efforts to mitigate human-induced climate change.聽

鈥淥ne of the problems with climate change: people have a difficulty seeing the impacts right now and a lot of it is 鈥榠n the future.鈥� [Climate change] has a slow, progressive impact, but the work we're doing on air pollution is a little more immediate for people,鈥� explains Brauer.

鈥淏ut there is a lot of overlap in what needs to be done for climate change and [air] pollution.... In a larger extent we鈥檙e talking about the same sort of things. Our work is giving more urgency to many of the measures discussed and agreed upon in Paris.鈥�