Status of Major polluting countries, Impacts on human health, policies and way farward initiatives taken up over the years in the world

1. MAJOR COUNTRIES IMPACTS ON
CLIMATE CHANGE, STATUS OF
INITIATIVES AND BENEFICIAL POLICIES IN
THE WORLD
BY
BHUKYA BHASKAR

2. INTRODUCTION
• Beginning in the mid-1990s, to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol to establish legally binding obligations for
developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
• The first UN Climate Change Conference was held in 1995 in Berlin.
• According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to keep global warming below 2
°C, emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) must be halved by
2050 (compared with 1990 levels).
• In Paris in 2015, world leaders from 197 countries pledged to put people first and reduce their countries’
greenhouse gas emissions. The Paris agreement has the aim of limiting global warming to well below
2ºC and ideally to 1.5°C.
• What is the evaluation of climate change?
Climate change impact assessments identify and quantify the expected impacts of climate change. These
assessments synthesize the current scientific knowledge of the expected effects of climate change on a
focus area, such as a resource, economic sector, landscape, or region, for decades to centuries into the
future.
• Policy approaches to climate change to major greenhouse gas reduction under consideration fall into
three main categories: carbon pricing, technology subsidies, and performance standards.
• Who makes climate change policy?
Created by the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) and the World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988, the IPCC has 195 Member countries.
• Based on the 2022 Climate Change Performance Index, Denmark was ranked as the country with the
highest achievement in climate protection, followed by Sweden. Sweden has established a goal to reach
net-zero emissions by 2045.

3. The first UN Climate Change Conference was held in 1995 in
Berlin
COP 27 was originally expected to take place in
November 2021, but was moved to 2022 due to the
rescheduling of COP 26 from 2020 to 2021. It is set to
take place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt
The COP 27 was heavily criticized by Jerome Foster
II, Elijah McKenzie-Jackson, and human rights
organizations for being hosted in Egypt. The country has
an appalling human rights record, with thousands of
individuals languishing in Egyptian jails solely for
exercising their rights to freedom of expression,
association or peaceful assembly.Amnesty International
called on the governments who were participating in
COP27 to use the opportunity to press the Egyptian
authorities for meaningful progress. They said COP27 was
an appropriate platform to promote safe, meaningful and
effective participation of Egyptian and non-Egyptian civil
society actors in the country

4. • The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental
treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate
system", in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in
the atmosphere. It was signed by 154 states a
• Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) is a term adopted by the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC). It refers to Article 6 of the Convention's original text
(1992), focusing on six priority areas: education, training, public
• The Global Climate Action Summit was held September 12–14,
2018 in San Francisco, California.
• The 2019 UN Climate Action Summit was held at the
headquarters of the United Nations in New York City on 23
September 2019. The UN 2019 Climate Summit convened on the
theme, "Climate Action Summit 2019: A Race We Can Win. A Race
We Must Win." The goal of the summit was to further climate
action

5. Countries With the Worst Drinking Water
• More than a quarter of the world’s population – about 2.1 billion people –
lack access to clean water, according to a report released 2019, by the
World Health Organization and UNICEF.
• 1. Uganda
• Nearly 40 percent of people in Uganda need to travel more than 30 minutes
to access safe drinking water.
• 2. Ethiopia
• There is a significant 43-point gap between safely managed water services
in rural and urban areas in Ethiopia.
• 3. Nigeria
• Nigeria is one of the fastest improving countries when it comes to water
quality, but 15 percent of people still drink from unimproved water sources.
• 4. Cambodia
• Cambodia is one of 18 countries where at least 5 percent of the population
relies on delivered water.
• 5. Nepal
• The lack of proper sanitation facilities in Nepal lends itself to 30 percent of
the population practicing open defecation.

6. Source: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/slideshows/10-countries-with-
the-worst-water-supply?slide=11
• 6. Ghana
• More than half of people in Ghana have limited sanitation
services.
• 7. Bhutan
• Only about a third of managed drinking water in Bhutan is free
from contamination.
• 8. Pakistan
• Pakistan is the country with the greatest gap in basic hygiene
between the richest and the poorest.
• 9. Congo
• In rural parts of Congo, only 21 percent of people have access to
water nearby, which is nearly double what it was five years ago.
• 10. Mexico
• Nearly three-quarters of people in Mexico drink packaged water,
and the country is a world leader in consumption of bottled water
per capita.

7. • Air pollution has severe health impacts in cities around the globe and the
WHO now recognises it as the single biggest environmental threat to human
health. Every year, exposure to air pollution is estimated to cause 7
million premature deaths.
• PM2.5, fine particulate matter of 2.5 micrometres or less in diameter, is
the most dangerous pollutant because it can penetrate the lung barrier
and enter the blood system, causing cardiovascular and respiratory
disease and cancers.
• PM10 (particulate matter with a diameter of 10 microns or less)
concentrations of 15 µg/m3 annual mean, 45 µg/m3 24-hour mean.
• Ozone (O3) concentrations of 100 µg/m3 8-hour mean.
• Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations of 10 µg/m3 annual average and 25
µg/m3 24-hour mean.
• Sulphur dioxide (SO2) concentrations of 40 µg/m3 24-hour mean.
• Carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations of 7 µg/m3 24-hour mean.
• The updated guidelines state that annual average concentrations of
PM2.5 should not exceed 5 µg/m3, while 24-hour average exposures
should not exceed 15 µg/m3 more than 3 - 4 days per year.

8. CO2 emission by countries in Million metric tonnes in
2010&2020
S
No
Name 2010 2020 S
No
Name 2010 2020
1 China 8617 10668 15 Australia 405 392
2 US 5676 4713 16 Mexico 464 357
3 India 1678 2442 17 UK 512 330
4 Russia 1613 1577 18 Italy 436 304
5 Japan 1215 1031 19 Poland 335 300
6 Iran 570 745 20 Kazakhstan 249 291
7 Germany 833 644 21 France 377 277
8 Saudi Arabia 518 626 22 Malaysia 216 273
9 South Korea 596 598 23 Thailand 255 258
10 Indonesia 452 590 24 Vietnam 139 254
11 Canada 559 536 25 Pakistan 154 235
12 Brazil 440 467
13 South Africa 467 452
14 Turkey 314 393

9. World's most polluted countries & regions (historical data 2018-2021
Most polluted country and region ranking based on annual average
PM2.5 concentration (μg/m³)
source: https://www.iqair.com/in-en/world-most-polluted-countries

10. According to this year's Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), which tracks
the climate mitigation efforts of 57 countries and regions plus the EU. The
document is collated by Germanwatch, the NewClimate Institute and Climate
Action Network.

11. Evaluating Australia's climate policy action

14. What are the possible solutions to climate change?
• In 2015, world leaders signed a major treaty called the Paris agreement, to
put these solutions into practice.
• The main ways to stop climate change are to pressure government and
business to:
• 1. Keep fossil fuels in the ground. Fossil fuels include coal, oil and gas –
and the more that are extracted and burned, the worse climate change will
get. All countries need to move their economies away from fossil fuels as
soon as possible.
• 2. Invest in renewable energy. Changing our main energy sources to clean
and renewable energy is the best way to stop using fossil fuels. These
include technologies like solar, wind, wave, tidal and geothermal power.
• 3. Switch to sustainable transport. Petrol and diesel vehicles, planes and
ships use fossil fuels. Reducing car use, switching to electric vehicles and
minimising plane travel will not only help stop climate change, it will
reduce air pollution too.
• 4. Help us keep our homes cosy. Homes shouldn’t be draughty and cold –
it’s a waste of money, and miserable in the winter. The government can
help households heat our homes in a green way – such as by insulating
walls and roofs and switching away from oil or gas boilers to heat pumps.

15.  5. Improve farming and encourage vegan diets. One of the best ways for individuals to help stop
climate change is by reducing their meat and dairy consumption, or by going fully vegan. Businesses
and food retailers can improve farming practices and provide more plant-based products to help people
make the shift.
 6. Restore nature to absorb more carbon. The natural world is very good at cleaning up our
emissions, but we need to look after it. Planting trees in the right places or giving land back to nature
through ‘rewilding’ schemes is a good place to start. This is because photosynthesising plants draw
down carbon dioxide as they grow, locking it away in soils.
 7. Protect forests like the Amazon. Forests are crucial in the fight against climate change, and
protecting them is an important climate solution. Cutting down forests on an industrial scale destroys
giant trees which could be sucking up huge amounts of carbon. Yet companies destroy forests to make
way for animal farming, soya or palm oil plantations. Governments can stop them by making better
laws.
 8. Protect the oceans. Oceans also absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,
which helps to keep our climate stable. But many are overfished, used for oil and gas drilling or
threatened by deep sea mining. Protecting oceans and the life in them is ultimately a way to protect
ourselves from climate change.
 9. Reduce how much people consume. Our transport, fashion, food and other lifestyle choices all
have different impacts on the climate. This is often by design – fashion and technology companies, for
example, will release far more products than are realistically needed. But while reducing consumption
of these products might be hard, it’s most certainly worth it. Reducing overall consumption in more
wealthy countries can help put less strain on the planet.
 10. Reduce plastic. Plastic is made from oil, and the process of extracting, refining and turning oil into
plastic (or even polyester, for clothing) is surprisingly carbon-intense. It doesn’t break down quickly in
nature so a lot of plastic is burned, which contributes to emissions. Demand for plastic is rising so
quickly that creating and disposing of plastics will account for 17% of the global carbon budget by
2050 (this is the emissions count we need to stay within according to the Paris agreement).

16. Countries with the highest achievements in climate protection based on Climate
Change Performance Index 2022
Rank Name of the
country
Score index
2022
Rank Country name Score
1 Denmark 76.92 15 Luxembourg 61.03
2 Sweden 74.46 16 Netherlands 60.81
3 Norway 73.62 17 Ukraine 60.52
4 UK 73.29 18 Egypt 59.83
5 Morocco 71.64 19 European Union(27) 59.53
6 Chilie 69.66 20 Philippines 58.98
7 India 69.22
8 Lithuania 65.06
9 Malta 64.39
10 Germany 63.82
11 Finland 62.74
12 Switzerland 61.98
13 Portugal 61.45
14 France 61.33

17. The 10 Countries Leading the Way in Climate Policy
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/slideshows/these-countries-are-leading-the-
way-in-climate-policy?slide=11

18. USA -CLIMATE, HEALTH CARE BILL

19. Reference
• https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/challenges/climate-change/solutions-climate-change/
• https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/slideshows/these-countries-are-leading-the-way-in-
climate-policy?slide=11
• https://climateanalytics.org/briefings/evaluating-australias-climate-policy-action/
• https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2020-12-09/Which-countries-are-performing-best-and-worst-on-
climate-change--W3YipJZm2A/index.html
• https://www.statista.com/statistics/266138/climate-change-the-countries-with-the-highest-
achievements/
• https://www.iqair.com/in-en/world-most-polluted-countries
• WHO Air Quality Guidelines; https://www.c40knowledgehub.org/s/article/WHO-Air-Quality-
Guidelines?language=en_US
•