Re: Healthcare professionals must lead on climate change
Combustion of fossil fuels and non-renewable biomass for energy is the dominant source of ambient as well as household air pollution, which cause about 7 million premature deaths each year. The two sources of air pollution are also the dominant sources of carbon dioxide and black carbon respectively which are in turn the dominant drivers of climate change. It is because of this nexus between energy-environment-public health, that we call for doctors and other health care providers to join the fight against climate change and for clean low-carbon development. Our editorial points out this nexus and the co-benefits of phasing out fossil fuels and open biomass combustion. If this is, as he claims, a band wagon it is one to be encouraged not denigrated.
To justify his critique, Mr Black cites the example of cookstoves used by the poor and how this problem can be solved by providing electricity powered by fossil fuel combustion. This argument is severely flawed. There are about 3 billion who depend on rudimentary home-built stoves that burn solid fuels such as wood, dung, coal and other fuels. If these stoves can be replaced with electric stoves they would of course largely eliminate indoor sources of air pollution as suggested by Mr Black. However, there are three formidable problems with Mr Black’s proposal:
1) Many of the three billion cannot afford to pay for the electricity despite the existence of large fossil fuel subsidies in many countries. If Mr Black is proposing to subsidize the electricity, how is he proposing to pay for additional fossil fuel subsidies for 40% of the world population; and for how long?
2) If this electricity is generated by coal, he has partly traded inhalation of black and organic particles (for the PM) indoors to inhaling fly ash and sulphates outdoors generated by coal fired power plants. In addition, over 80 per cent of current coal reserves must remain in the ground in order to meet the Paris agreement target of 2 °C (1)
3) Most rural areas do not have access to power plants and even if there is access it is unreliable. It is much easier to provide improved cookstoves that drastically cut down both air pollution and climate pollution; or biogas generated from farm manure and organic waste; or distributed power generation through microgrids powered by renewables than developing the infrastructure such as that needed for coal power plants. In the case of India LPG is increasingly widely used for cooking and although it is a fossil fuel the CO2 emissions and fine particulate air pollution are much lower than for coal
In casting doubt on the magnitude of the effects of climate change on health, Mr Black also ignores the health effects of severe weather such as heat waves, floods, droughts and fires. These are naturally occurring phenomena but basic physics and thermodynamics of the atmosphere dictates that as the planet continues (it has already warmed by 1 C) to warm, the intensity of floods and droughts will increase; frequency and intensity of exposure to extreme heat stress will increase; sea level will continue to rise, worsening the coastal flooding from storm surges. These changes, together with the effects on agricultural yields especially at low latitudes, will exact a heavy toll on human health, particularly the poorest three billion who are still relying on 18th century technologies. Of course there are uncertainties in projections of future climate change but these uncertainties can also mean that the projected changes will be much worse than mid-range estimates suggest.
1. McGlade C, Ekins P The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2 °C. Nature; 517,187–190 (08 January 2015)
Competing interests:
No competing interests
26 October 2016
Veerabhadran Ramanathan
Professor
Andy Haines (professor of public health and primary care, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
Rapid Response:
Re: Healthcare professionals must lead on climate change
Combustion of fossil fuels and non-renewable biomass for energy is the dominant source of ambient as well as household air pollution, which cause about 7 million premature deaths each year. The two sources of air pollution are also the dominant sources of carbon dioxide and black carbon respectively which are in turn the dominant drivers of climate change. It is because of this nexus between energy-environment-public health, that we call for doctors and other health care providers to join the fight against climate change and for clean low-carbon development. Our editorial points out this nexus and the co-benefits of phasing out fossil fuels and open biomass combustion. If this is, as he claims, a band wagon it is one to be encouraged not denigrated.
To justify his critique, Mr Black cites the example of cookstoves used by the poor and how this problem can be solved by providing electricity powered by fossil fuel combustion. This argument is severely flawed. There are about 3 billion who depend on rudimentary home-built stoves that burn solid fuels such as wood, dung, coal and other fuels. If these stoves can be replaced with electric stoves they would of course largely eliminate indoor sources of air pollution as suggested by Mr Black. However, there are three formidable problems with Mr Black’s proposal:
1) Many of the three billion cannot afford to pay for the electricity despite the existence of large fossil fuel subsidies in many countries. If Mr Black is proposing to subsidize the electricity, how is he proposing to pay for additional fossil fuel subsidies for 40% of the world population; and for how long?
2) If this electricity is generated by coal, he has partly traded inhalation of black and organic particles (for the PM) indoors to inhaling fly ash and sulphates outdoors generated by coal fired power plants. In addition, over 80 per cent of current coal reserves must remain in the ground in order to meet the Paris agreement target of 2 °C (1)
3) Most rural areas do not have access to power plants and even if there is access it is unreliable. It is much easier to provide improved cookstoves that drastically cut down both air pollution and climate pollution; or biogas generated from farm manure and organic waste; or distributed power generation through microgrids powered by renewables than developing the infrastructure such as that needed for coal power plants. In the case of India LPG is increasingly widely used for cooking and although it is a fossil fuel the CO2 emissions and fine particulate air pollution are much lower than for coal
In casting doubt on the magnitude of the effects of climate change on health, Mr Black also ignores the health effects of severe weather such as heat waves, floods, droughts and fires. These are naturally occurring phenomena but basic physics and thermodynamics of the atmosphere dictates that as the planet continues (it has already warmed by 1 C) to warm, the intensity of floods and droughts will increase; frequency and intensity of exposure to extreme heat stress will increase; sea level will continue to rise, worsening the coastal flooding from storm surges. These changes, together with the effects on agricultural yields especially at low latitudes, will exact a heavy toll on human health, particularly the poorest three billion who are still relying on 18th century technologies. Of course there are uncertainties in projections of future climate change but these uncertainties can also mean that the projected changes will be much worse than mid-range estimates suggest.
1. McGlade C, Ekins P The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2 °C. Nature; 517,187–190 (08 January 2015)
Competing interests: No competing interests