Peking University, August 24, 2022: In the face of growing health impacts from extreme weather, climate change and air pollution, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and World Health Organization (WHO) have agreed to step up joint efforts to tackle environmental health risks that cause an estimated 12.6 million premature deaths every year. 

To advance the implementation of Collaboration Framework Agreement on Health, Climate and Environment through providing cross-cutting science perspectives based on the latest evidence and key progress globally, Peking University Professor Zhu Tong and his team called a gathering of international research programs and networks to promote a collaborative study on AiR-Climate-Health (ARCH) Nexus issue at the online and onsite venues of the Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress (SRI) 2022 in Pretoria, South Africa. 

SRI is the world’s largest transdisciplinary gathering for the global sustainability community, which brings together more than 2000 global sustainability research leaders, government and civil society experts, funders and innovators to inspire action and promote a sustainability transformation.
 

Source: Future Earth

The thematic session on AiR Pollution- Climate Change- Health Effects Nexus was a joint effort of Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) Programme of the WMO and Monsoon Asia Integrated Research for Sustainability - Future Earth, supported by the AiR-Climate-Health (ARCH) Integrated Study and Exchange Platform of Peking University.

The session, chaired by Prof. Zhu Tong from College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, consisted of four presentations and an interactive and fruitful panel discussion. During the session, the highlights of the cutting-edge research findings in related fields were presented. In addition, next-step collaboration was also discussed, such as the establishment of a joint working group and developing the Air-Climate-Health Science Insights Reports.
 

Source: WHO 

Prof. Lidia Morawska from the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Queensland University of Technology in Australia, who is also leading the WHO Collaborative Center on Air Quality and Health, shared her recent research on health effects due to exposure to air pollution. She emphasized that not only exposure to high levels of pollution reduced life expectancy, low levels could also lead to reduced life expectancy. And the termination of air pollution must be achieved through the transition to clean energy.

Dr. Oksana Tarasova, head of the Atmospheric Environment Research Division from WMO and chief of the GAW Programme, introduced the GAW Programme and their recent findings on the global observations and analysis of the atmospheric chemical composition changes. She mentioned that atmospheric composition was poorly monitored in many parts of the world. To address the issue, GAW is building a global station information system in support of environmental conventions and services and calls for strengthened data sharing. 

University of Iowa Professor Greg Carmichael, chair of the Scientific Steering Committee of WMO-GAQ, shared his work on air quality forecast inter-comparison and experiences on the improvement of simulation modeling related to air quality and its environmental impacts. He emphasized in his report the importance of bringing research findings and information together to translate science into policies. 

Source: WMO-GAW

Sean Khan from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), who is also manager of the Global Environment Monitoring Systems for Air (GEMS Air) project, shared UNEP’s work on advocating for the use of low-cost monitoring devices and other emerging technologies to fill the data gap in developing countries. He revealed that only ~33% of countries imposed obligations to meet the legislatively mandated Ambient Air quality Standards, while ~75% of countries had no air quality management strategy or continuous monitoring data of air pollution. Hence, the joint efforts of all stakeholders are greatly needed for the global promotion and practice of pollution control policies to protect the public health.

During the panel discussion at the end of the session, participating scientists and project officers have reached a consensus on the action points:
 
·Strengthen the exchange and collaboration across air, climate, and health research fields, facilitate dialogues between related international organizations (WHO, WMO, UNE) and local authorities;
 
·Link the above stakeholders, design, and implement studies based on policy and intervention needs; 

·Make good use of high-resolution data and innovative approaches to sustain and strengthen the research and keep voices on the related topics; 

·Develop papers and reports to share insights and perspectives from research community through multi outreach channels targeting the audience beyond scientist based on the research findings. 

In collaboration with several leading academic institutions including Fudan University, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences with support of Energy Foundation China, the Peking University team has been putting a great effort to establish the ARCH platform to take early steps in China with aims to provide experiences from pilot studies and to scale up from regional to global. 

A preparatory working group was gathered to support the initial consultation of working plan and trial implementation. A kick-off ceremony of ARCH will be soon organized on August 25, 2022 in Beijing.