Environment pollution and health emergencies:
- Poor environmental conditions “cause approximately 25% of global disease and mortality” -- around 9 million deaths in 2015 alone.
- Air pollution causes 6-7 million early deaths annually.
- Chemicals pumped into the seas cause “potentially multi-generational” adverse health effects.
- Due to Lack of access to clean drinking supplies,4 million people die each year from preventable diseases such as diarrhoea and parasites.
- Land degradation through mega-farming and deforestation occurs in areas of Earth home to 3.2 billion people.
- Deadly emissions, chemicals polluting drinking water, and the accelerating destruction of ecosystems crucial to the livelihoods of billions of people are driving a worldwide epidemic that hampers the global economy.
- Rampant overconsumption, pollution and food waste in the developed world leads to hunger, poverty and disease elsewhere.
- India could save at least $3 trillion (₹210 trillion approx.) in healthcare costs if it implemented policy initiatives consistent with ensuring that the globe didn’t heat up beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius by the turn of the century
Recommendations:
- The report called for a root-and-branch detoxifying of human behaviour. It calls for immediate changes in the way the world eats, gets its energy and handles its waste.
- Food waste for instance, which accounts for 9% of global greenhouse gas emissions, could be slashed. The world currently throws away a third of all food produced. In richer nations, 56% goes to waste.
- It also called for a rapid drawdown in greenhouse gas emissions and pesticide use to improve air and water quality.
