While high in the public and political discourse, as well as in public health, other environmental stressors, such as noise pollution, are much less researched, talked about and visible. However, the impact of noise pollution on public health is significant, across Europe, and globally. The interplay between climate change mitigation and noise pollution reduction reveals...
In a recent interview with Nikkei Asia, Environment Minister Hsueh Fu-sheng (薛富盛) voiced discontent over Taiwan’s exclusion from the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP28. When asked whether it is conducive to exclude Taiwan from the COP28 summit, Hsueh said that it is very unfair to Taiwan as the country has one of the...
The writer served as the first national climate adviser to the White House and is a former administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency.It is of course completely right that climate, economic and technical experts are included in every COP discussion, such as the one in the United Arab Emirates later this month. But only...
Can you talk about the health impacts of climate change without mentioning the burning of fossil fuels, its leading cause?An intergovernmental declaration on the health impacts of climate change led by the United Arab Emirates, which is presiding over this year’s global climate talks, and circulated among countries for their potential endorsement, does just that.Several...
In the weeks leading up to COP28 in Dubai, the world’s largest climate change conference, Cape Town hosted a very different kind of event – Africa Energy Week (AEW) 2023. Billed as the “biggest energy event in Africa”, AEW was a four-day gathering of oil and gas executives, policy-makers, government officials and investors from around...
G20 countries are failing to integrate air pollution into their climate plans, a new study finds. The authors want that fixed at COP28. When we think about the dangers of fossil fuels, we tend to imagine the climate consequences on a grand scale from wildfires to flooding. But there is, of course, a more insidious...
Women living and working in places with higher levels of fine particle air pollution are more likely to get breast cancer than those living and working in less polluted areas. Results of a study looking at the effects of both residential and workplace exposure to air pollution on breast cancer risk will be presented by...
There are some things we rightly find intolerable, such as the possession of poorly trained, aggressive dogs. There are other things, whose impacts are many thousands of times worse, that we decide just to live with. What makes the difference? Visibility is one reason: a photo of a large dog with bared teeth triggers primal...
At least 23 million people around the world live on flood-plains contaminated by potentially harmful concentrations of toxic waste from metal-mining activity, according to a study. UK scientists mapped the world’s 22,609 active and 159,735 abandoned metal mines and calculated the extent of pollution from them. Chemicals can leach from mining operations into soil and...
Long-term exposure to one of the most prevalent types of air pollution may increase the risk of developing dementia, a debilitating neurological disease associated with memory loss and reduced cognitive function, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Michigan have concluded that people living with higher levels of fine particulate matter, or...