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STORY: UNECE / POLLUTION REPORT
TRT: 02:37
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 01 JUNE 2016, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE
FILE – WHO - FEBRUARY 2015, PARIS, FRANCE
1. Various shots, smog over city
01 JUNE 2016, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Christian Friis Bach, Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE):
“The UNECE Air Convention has had significant success. Over the past 30 years, we have gained, on average, citizens in our region, one extra year in lifespan. Our fish stocks are recovering. Our forests are surviving. It’s been a big success but there is a lot more to do. Air pollution is the biggest killer in our region still.”
FILE – UNIFEED – APRIL 2014, NEW YORK CITY
3. Wide shot, traffic
01 JUNE 2016, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Christian Friis Bach, Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE):
“People believe that, if we tackle air pollution we will curb our economic growth, but that’s wrong because the cost of air pollution has to be counted in hundreds of billions. We can save money; we can improve technology; we can get clean air and healthy citizens. And it’s a very good deal.”
FILE – WHO - AUGUST 2015, HANOI, VIET NAM
5. Various shots, city traffic
01 JUNE 2016, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Christian Friis Bach, Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE):
“The new evidence clearly shows us that we cannot tackle it in our cities and even in our countries. We need to cooperate internationally because a significant part of the pollution that we face comes from other countries. So we need to go even beyond the region that we are in, beyond the region where the Air Convention has created significant results and cooperate with Asia and the rest of the world in order to tackle air pollution. So it really calls for international cooperation to bring down the levels of air pollution and it’s going to benefit our citizens and our countries significantly if we do it.”
FILE – UNICEF – FEBRUARY 2008, CHELYABINSK, RUSSIA
7. Wide shot, train in front of industrial landscape
8. Close up, exhaust from the car
9. Wide shot, industrial pollution
10. Zoom in, power plant
11. Close up, smoking chimneys
01 JUNE 2016, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Carolin Sanz Noriega, Secretariat, Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe:
“There needs to be a reduction of fine particles, of ozone. There’s still high exposure of the population in cities to ozone and fine particles, which makes them sick. So we still need to reduce air pollution more. And this cannot only be done at the local level, at the city level, but it also needs to be done at the national and international level. Pollutants know no borders and they travel all along so we need concerted international action to reduce air pollution.”
13. Close ups, Towards Cleaner Air report
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) called for international cooperation to continue the fight against air pollution.
In report released last week, UNECE said air quality has improved significantly in North America and Europe over the past three decades largely as a result of the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (Air Convention) and European Union air pollution policies. ‘Towards Cleaner Air’ also highlighted the fact that average life expectancy in Europe has increased by one year and hundreds of thousands of premature deaths every year have been avoided as a result of policy-driven reductions in air pollution. In addition, soil acidification has been halted in most parts of Europe, and fish stocks are recovering in freshwaters where they had largely disappeared.
However, despite these successes, the report noted that air pollution was still the primary environmental cause of premature death in Europe, notably due to high concentrations of fine particles and ground-level ozone, and ecosystem biodiversity was threatened due to nitrogen deposition.
UNECE Executive Director Christian Friis Bach said the new evidence clearly shows combating air pollution requires international cooperation because a “significant part of the pollution that we face comes from other countries.”
Bach said, “People believe that, if we tackle air pollution we will curb our economic growth, but that’s wrong because the cost of air pollution has to be counted in hundreds of billions. We can save money, we can improve technology. We can get clean air and healthy citizens. And it’s a very good deal.”
