Pollution pods premiered today at COP25: an interactive art installation where visitors can experience the poor quality of air in such cities as New Delhi, London, and São Paulo.
Many experience shortness of breath after just a few minutes inside the pods, although there is no danger to their health. Michael Pinsky’s Pollution Pods use fog machines and blends of perfumes to recreate poor air quality. Another pod replicates the clean atmosphere in Tautra, Norway.
Outside the pods, however, air pollution has been declared a public health priority by WHO: largely caused by the same burning of fossil fuels that is driving climate change, polluted air is poisoning nine out of ten of us and killing over seven million of us prematurely every year. Children are especially vulnerable: 600,000 children die prematurely every year from air pollution related diseases.
“The true cost of climate change is felt in our hospitals and in our lungs. The health burden of polluting energy sources is now so high, that moving to cleaner and more sustainable choices for energy supply, transport and food systems effectively pays for itself,” said Dr Maria Neira, WHO Director of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health. “When health is taken into account, climate change mitigation is an opportunity, not a cost”.
While Day 3 of the Climate talks was officially focused on climate science, industry, and innovation, an early morning demonstration called for big polluters to pay for the damage they have done to the planet.
Delegates and other officials entering the conference were forced to walk through the protestors who had collected 200,000 signatures on a petition calling for reparations.
“Corporations must stop controlling climate negotiations,” said Lidy Nacpil of APMDD. “We demand reparations for climate debt, for the abuse and impacts of climate emergency they have caused while relentlessly pursuing profit.”
COP Bytes
- South Korea has constructed a 20-mile bike lane covered with solar panels between the cities of Daejon and Sejong, isolating bicyclers from traffic and protecting them from the sun while producing clean energy.
But the highway is just that, a two-way bike lane that runs between cities, and is stranded in the middle of the regular highway, with three lanes of traffic on either side. This is mitigated somewhat by the side barriers, which visually block the view of the surrounding road, but you’re still marooned in the median strip. And like a regular highway, it’s fine for getting from one place to another as quickly as possible, but the views aren’t up to much.