Clean air and healthy people for a stronger future
https://arab.news/zcefb
World Environmental Health Day in 2025 carries a clear message: clean air, healthy people.
The science is unequivocal. The World Health Organization reports that nearly everyone on Earth breathes air exceeding its guideline limits. Combined, ambient and household air pollution cause about 6.7 million premature deaths annually and diminish the quality of life for millions more. The urgency could not be starker, and the need for action clearer.
The Air Quality Life Index shows that particulate pollution (fine particulate matter, PM2.5) shortens the average person’s life by about 1.9 years globally. At the same time, Copernicus confirmed 2024 as the warmest year on record — the first full calendar year with global temperatures more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Together, these realities highlight how climate pressures now amplify daily health risks through ozone, wildfire smoke, and stagnant air.
There is good news: these impacts are reversible. Clean-air policies — both short- and long-term — have proven effective, delivering rapid improvements and paying back in health and economic dividends.
The COVID-19 lockdowns, though unintended for air quality, demonstrated how pollution levels could decline sharply in a matter of weeks. Longer-term action has also shown results. In China, sustained controls since 2013 reduced fine particulate pollution by about 41 percent through 2022, adding nearly two years to average life expectancy if maintained. Europe achieved similar success, with PM2.5-attributable deaths falling by 45 percent between 2005 and 2022 as standards and enforcement strengthened.
In the US, the Clean Air Act has driven a 78 percent reduction in emissions of six key pollutants since 1970. In 2024, the annual PM2.5 standard was tightened to 9 µg/m³, a change projected to prevent thousands of premature deaths each year. Crucially, these improvements did not come at the expense of prosperity — US GDP quadrupled over the same period.
These examples prove that cleaner air and economic growth can reinforce each other. They also provide adaptable models for the Global South, with strong co-benefits for climate resilience, productivity, and equity.
º£½ÇÖ±²¥ is charting its own integrated path. Under Vision 2030 and the Saudi Green Initiative, the Kingdom is pairing ecological restoration with energy transition to deliver health, climate, and economic gains together. By 2024, about 115 million trees had been planted and 118,000 hectares of degraded land rehabilitated — steps that cool urban microclimates, trap dust, and improve respiratory health.
On the energy side, the Optimum Energy Mix aims for a 50-50 split between renewable energy and natural gas by 2030, supported by plans to scale renewables to 130 gigawatts. This strategy targets an annual reduction of 278 million tonnes of carbon emissions by 2030, steadily cutting particulates and ozone precursors while reinforcing health and climate resilience.
The Kingdom is also addressing longevity through a health lens. Life expectancy has risen from 51.7 years in 1969 to 77.6 years in 2023, with Vision 2030 setting a target of 80 years by decade’s end. While just 3.3 percent of Saudis are currently 65 or older, the Kingdom is preparing for demographic change by raising the retirement age to 65 and investing in active aging strategies. Central to this effort is the Hevolution Foundation, established under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which operates with an annual budget of up to $1 billion to fund research in aging and biotechnology.
These initiatives underscore how cleaner air and healthier, longer lives — the focus of Environmental Health Day — are mutually reinforcing goals for resilience and prosperity.
The opportunity is to turn a simple truth into practice: cleaner air lengthens lives, boosts productivity, and builds climate resilience.
Hassan Alzain
The economics make the case urgent. Air pollution inflicts an estimated $8.1 trillion in global health damage annually — about 6.1 percent of global GDP. Yet air-quality finance remains a fraction of climate finance, even though solutions overlap. Roughly 95 percent of air-pollution-related deaths occur in developing countries, where billions are exposed to PM2.5 levels many times higher than WHO guidelines. A clean-air agenda is therefore one of the most cost-effective ways to strengthen health systems, accelerate climate action, and extend life expectancy simultaneously.
Industry leaders are also highlighting this imperative. Jason R. Hall, Chartered Fellow of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, notes: “For industry, clean air is not just a regulatory burden but a resilience strategy. By embedding air quality into business decisions and investing in cleaner technologies, companies not only safeguard communities and workers, they secure competitiveness and long-term value.â€
His perspective illustrates how environmental responsibility, when embraced by business, drives resilience, strengthens public trust, and builds a foundation for sustainable socio-economic growth.
The path forward is practical and achievable. Clean air must be established as a core health metric in national planning, with life-expectancy impacts reported alongside pollutants such as PM2.5, NO2, and ozone in every dense city. Resilience should be built into everyday environments, ensuring schools, clinics, workplaces, and neighborhoods meet air-quality standards, benefit from verified ventilation, and adopt cooling and greening measures that reduce heat and dust exposure. Open data can help close the implementation gap, as real-time monitoring with low-cost sensors empowers both regulators and communities to hold polluters accountable while protecting the most vulnerable.
Aligning clean-air spending with climate finance is equally important, prioritizing renewable energy, electrification, clean cooking, and zero-emission transport — solutions that deliver climate and health gains together. Finally, restoring nature must remain central, as trees, mangroves, and native vegetation naturally reduce dust, cool urban heat islands, and buffer the impacts of extreme weather.
These steps translate directly into longer lives, fewer hospitalizations, and stronger economies. As Graeme Mitchell, award-winning environmental health educator at Liverpool John Moores University, observes: “Clean air policies are the rare public intervention that pays back quickly in human terms. When cities invest in monitoring, enforcement, and community protection, they do not just lower a number on a dashboard; they give people back days, months, and years of healthy life.â€
His insight underscores the need for evidence-based leadership linking air quality, climate resilience, and public health into one integrated global agenda.
To maximize the impact of 2025’s theme, a clear global call to action can unite governments, investors, and communities. Countries can adopt WHO-aligned PM2.5 standards, publish city-level health assessments, and embed clean-air criteria in every climate project. Development banks can establish dedicated clean-air finance windows to support local initiatives with measurable health benefits.
Philanthropy and investors can fund sensor networks, clean-cooking programs, and zero-emission transport in underserved areas. Universities can expand curricula to train the next generation of environmental health professionals. Communities, too, have a vital role, with citizen scientists able to validate sensors, participate in air-quality boards, and help design safer, greener urban spaces.
The opportunity is to turn a simple truth into practice: cleaner air lengthens lives, boosts productivity, and builds climate resilience. The Global South has the most to gain and the ingenuity to lead, with º£½ÇÖ±²¥â€™s integrated approach under Vision 2030 offering one model of how restoration, clean energy, and health innovation can work together. If we align standards, finance, and community action around clean air in 2025, we will not only celebrate World Environmental Health Day. We will add years of healthy life to millions — and do it in time to matter.
• Hassan Alzain is the author of the award-winning book “Green Gambit.â€
