Climate Action for Public Health

“Where every breath is so precious,” said Dean Kyte, “and where every breath makes a difference, how do you make sure that each of those breaths is clear, that it’s free of particulate matter, that it’s not toxic?”

Dean Kyte posed these questions to a full auditorium in her opening remarks for this year’s Dr. Maurice S. Segal Lecture last Monday. The Fletcher School welcomed Jane Burston, founding executive director of the Clean Air Fund, to campus where she gave a talk titled, "Air Pollution: A Climate and Health Emergency, and How We Can Tackle It," presented by The Fletcher School in partnership with Tufts University School of Medicine. Dean Kyte noted that clean air is a pivotal area of study for Fletcher, given the ways in which it pushes the boundaries of health policy, climate policy, and diplomacy. 

We spoke with Burston to learn about her work with the Clean Air Fund, air pollution, and climate solutions.

The Fletcher School: How did your journey on the topic of clean air begin?

Jane Burston: I was running the climate and energy department at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK—a government-owned science and technology lab. My background is working on climate change, which I’d been doing for more than a decade when I got that job. At some point they did a restructure and included air quality as part of my team.

What I discovered was that engaging with people on air quality, whether members of the public or the deputy mayor of Beijing, was transformational. People find it understandable: they can smell air pollution, sometimes they can see it, and people understand that reducing it will help people's health. So people are very supportive of action to make sure our air is clean. This realization led me to set up the Clean Air Fund. By tackling air pollution to address health, we also get greenhouse gas benefits that address climate change.

Advocates in some other environmental or conservation fields, for example on ocean waste, sometimes feel as though climate change takes up a lot of space in the environmental policy domain. But you've described how air pollution is linked to climate change. How do they connect?

There's a big overlap between the sources of air pollution and the sources of climate change, . About two-thirds of the air pollution that harms our health is produced by burning fossil fuels, something which as we all know causes the majority of greenhouse gas emissions. Also, some sources of air pollution occur naturally, such as dust, water vapor, and sea salt.

A blinkered approach to addressing climate change can actually make air pollution worse, like burning biomass. Biomass is renewable, so it can be net zero, but burning it produces some of the same kinds of pollution that burning fossil fuels does. So there’s a strong argument for joined-up thinking and action on climate and air pollution.

When people think about air pollution, they might imagine smog and the most extreme cases. Can you tell us about some of the lesser known ways that air pollution affects people's lives?

There's always new research coming out about the health impact of pollution. Along with the well-known respiratory health impacts, including asthma and lung cancer, there are impacts we've only just started to discover. A piece recently identified that in Southeast Asia, about 30% of miscarriages are caused by air pollution. There's been recent research linking air pollution to dementia and Parkinson's disease. Tiny particles that we breathe can enter the bloodstream through the lungs, travel all the way up, and start affecting the brain.

In places with high density and population growth, how much more difficult is it to live without pollution? Is it still possible?

It's very hard, but the rapid urbanization of some cities presents an opportunity to build in a different way, avoiding pollution before it starts. Working on pollution, it would be easy to chase it around the world, getting installations closed down. And that's certainly important. But one of the things that I'm very interested in is urban planning and infrastructure finance, and seeing how we could build the cities of the future so that we are not baking in pollution right from the beginning.

We've just opened an office in Ghana, and I traveled to the third largest city, Tamale. They just built a new road from the airport. At the moment, 95% of the trips in Tamale are done by bicycle or motorbike, yet this new road has been built with no bike lane. The new tarmac is smooth, the cars are driving fast, and bikes are being ridden off the road. I'm sure that in a few years, 95% of the trips will not be done by a two-wheeler, because it's not safe. Just as the western world is trying to get people back on their bicycles, we have a situation where people were happily traveling by bicycle, and now it's a lot less safe for them to do so because of the money that's been spent on infrastructure. What a wasted opportunity.

You’ve worked in a public sector capacity and now a not for profit organization. Where have you found that you've been able to have the most impact?

I always go where I think my impact will be greatest at the time. I set up the Clean Air Fund because I saw that there was very limited philanthropic money going to the topic, and that was stifling the evidence-generation, activism and policy making that needed to happen.

At the Clean Air Fund, we fund a lot of grassroots organizations to campaign for change. I sat on a panel in Davos recently with the European Commissioner for the Environment. We were in front of a massive room full of students, and the commissioner said that the EU’s Fit for 55 package was only so ambitious because of grassroots campaigning and youth activism.

I also think that research is really important. We would not be having this huge uptick in momentum on air quality if it hadn't been for health impact research, which has increased significantly over the last decade.

What do you see as the balance of responsibility between government, the corporate world, and consumers?

To tackle a complex, systemic issues like air pollution, we need collective action from all parts of society: government, businesses as well as civil society organisations and individual consumers.

Government has a responsibility to ensure that the right consumer choices are easier to make. The easiest choice at the moment in many countries is to buy a car that has a combustion engine, instead of having an electric vehicle, or taking public transport, walking, or cycling. I've just done a house renovation, and it was difficult to figure out how to incorporate a heating system based in renewable energy. Solutions should not require citizens to take difficult voluntary action. The larger bulk of responsibility lies with government to make those choices easier.

Still, politicians won't do that until people show that they care. As citizens, we can’t wash our hands of responsibility and say it's only on the government to regulate business. We need to create the political will for the government take that action.

Are there any areas where you see exciting innovations happening in regards to this topic, whether in the corporate world or in public policy?

On one hand, innovation isn't the issue. We have all the technologies that we need to fix the problem, largely. But having said that, there are exciting policy innovations in many countries. There's a big push for the end of the combustion engine, with bans on new combustion engine vehicles sales. We're seeing low emission zones springing up, where cities are banning the most-polluting vehicles from city centers or charging a fee for them to drive. In the corporate sector, there's a new Alliance for Clean Air, which the World Economic Forum started with 16 multinational businesses. Along with an academic organization called the Stockholm Environment Institute, they've drafted a methodology to measure corporate air pollution footprints so that they can prioritize climate action that also helps people's health.

How can a graduate school best prepare future leaders?

By being interdisciplinary, a school can expose students to lots of different ways that change can happen. At universities, it's easy to think of research as being the only route for change. It's certainly a very strong one, but there are many other roles to play.

What advice would you give to students?

Keep an open mind about who you work or partner with. It's easy to stick to your swim lane, but some of the most innovative and best partnerships that I've seen have been between activists and mayors, or national politicians and multinational companies, or researchers and musicians. Keep an open mind and keep meeting people who are outside of your area.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.