UN: Environmental pollution causes more deaths than covid

Pollution from states and businesses causes more deaths worldwide than COVID-19, according to a United Nations environmental report released today calling for “immediate and ambitious action” to ban certain toxic chemicals.

The report notes that contamination with pesticides, plastics and e-waste causes widespread human rights abuses as well as at least nine million deaths a year and that the issue is largely ignored.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused nearly 5.9 million deaths, according to the Worldometer database.

“Current approaches to managing the risks posed by pollution and toxic substances are apparently failing to result in widespread violations of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment,” concludes the report’s author, UN Special Rapporteur Dave.

The report, which is due to be presented to the United Nations Security Council next month, which has declared the environment a human right, was posted on the Council’s website today.

It calls for a ban on perfluorinated and polyfluorinated alkylated substances (PFAS) – used in household products, such as non-stick cookware, which have been linked to cancer and have been described as “lifelong chemicals” because they do not dissolve easily.

The report also proposes clearing all contaminated areas and, in extreme cases, possible relocation from so-called “sacrifice zones” of affected communities, many of whom are poor, marginalized or indigenous.

The term, originally used to describe nuclear test zones, has been extended to include any severely contaminated site designated uninhabited due to climate change.

Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has described environmental threats as the biggest human rights challenge in the world, and human rights abuses are being used as an argument in a growing number of climate and environmental cases.

Source: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ