Climate Change and Air Pollution: The Impact on Human Health in Developed and Developing Countries

This book discusses regional and international climate-change, air- pollution and human-health scenarios. The research, from both industrialized and developing countries, focuses on region-specific perspectives of climate change impacts on air pollution. After analyzing the variations of climate data over recent decades, the authors consider the different effects of climate change on air pollution and health. As stressed by the IPCC, “pollen, smoke and ozone levels are likely to increase in a warming world, affecting the health of residents of major cities. Rising temperatures will worsen air quality through a combination of more ozone in cities, bigger wild fires and worse pollen outbreaks,” according to a major UN climate report. The report follows the World Health Organization in finding that air pollution is the world’s greatest environmental health risk, killing 7 million people in 2014 (compared to 0.4 million deaths due to malaria). Deteriorating air quality will most affect the elderly, children, people with chronic ill-health and expectant mothers. Another report suggests that more than 5.5 million people die prematurely each year due to air pollution with over half of those deaths occurring in China and India. A study on the air pollution in the USA,suggests that more than half of US population lives in areas with potentially dangerous air pollution, and about six out of 10 of the top cities for air pollution in the USA are located in the state of California.
In the face of future climate change, scientists have urged stronger emission controls to avoid worsening air pollution and the associated exacerbation of health problems, especially in more populated regions of the world. It is hoped that the implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement will help minimize air pollution.
Additionally the authors consider the various measures that different countries and groups of countries, like the European Union, have adopted to mitigate the problems arising from climate change and to safeguard the health of population. The book examines the increasing incidence of diseases largely caused by climate change. The countries/regions covered in this study include the USA, Northern Europe (U.K).,Southern Europe ( Italy), Canada, Australia, East Asia, Russia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Caribbean countries, and Argentina.