Demanding real change from the real culprits
By: Cristiana De Lia
Tags: Campaigns For Nonprofits, Climate Action, Air Pollution, Climate Crisis, Climate Change

Published by Air Quality News on 18th Dec, 2020

9-year old girl Ella becomes first person in the world to have air pollution listed as a cause of death. What can this teach us?

Photo by kinkate from Pexels

Yesterday marked a historic day for the UK and the world, as Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah became the first person to officially have air pollution written down on her death certificate.

Ella lived near a major circular road in southeast London and she died in 2013 when she was only 9 years old. Constantly exposed to unlawful levels of air pollutants, she suffered continuous asthma attacks, seizures and cardiac arrests which eventually led to her death. Had it been know how much about the unlawful level of pollutants in the air were worsening Ella’s condition, her mum Rosamund has said she would have moved Ella into a safer and cleaner area.

Air pollution impacts are not unknown and increasing evidence is shining a light on several more concerning impacts, not just for our respiratory systems, but for our memory and mental health as well. Not to mention the most recent and ever increasing evidence on the links between Covid19 and air quality.

Governments now cannot deny knowing about this but with Ella’s case, it will be harder for politicians around the world to ignore the impacts of air pollution and even harder for them to keep going as usual by investing in new industrial depots or roads.

What Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah has achieved this week has not only brought justice to her daughter, but also offers hope for protecting children and future generations.

In a similar vein to climate litigations happening around the world, I hope this legal-first might set a world precedent and spark a domino effect in other places.

Governments around the world are failing to protect people from the risks of climate change. From climate anxiety to the fear of having kids, people around the world are being affected more than we can sometimes even consciously recognize.

Rosamund’s resiliency and campaigning tenacity teaches us a very important lesson. From shorter showers to more biking, as much as we can change our individual behaviours for the better, we still need to hold governments and businesses accountable.

As much as our combined efforts to reduce our emissions are welcome, the system requires some changes from within.

We need governments to set new laws, new ways of enforcing the laws, we need taxpayer money to be invested in the green economy, and we need businesses to take their share of responsibility and go beyond green-washing (because hey recycled plastic bottles don’t fix the problem).

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

As Greta reminded us as the world entered its 5th world anniversary from the Paris agreement, leaders are speeding in the wrong direction.

Countries like the UK, China, Japan and the US, have made some promising commitments and pledges and announced new important actions on climate, but unless leaders walk the talk, not much will change.

2021 will be a crucial year for the climate movement around the world. With the next COP26 to be held in Glasgow, Boris Johnson is already feeling the heat (pun intended) and has already announced a new climate plan and a halt on subsidies to fossil fuel projects abroad.

Plans are far from being perfect and yesterday’s UK top court decision to move forward with Heathrow’s expansion plans is the clear example of the stark contrast with the UK promises to lead the climate fight and reach net zero targets.

Commitments around the world are welcome, as much as it’s welcome that new positions like John Kerry’s in the US, are now being created just for climate. But we need governments to present us with clear plans and roadmaps. And we need to ask for them.

With the UK now brexiting, many EU regulations such as the ones on air pollution will drop and if they stay on, there is currently no way they can be enforced.

Covid19 might have opened our eyes on the need of building a greener planet and we even started to appreciate those small things that made our days brighter, such as working from home, spending more time with the family, less commuting and cleaner air.

Ella’s ruling isn’t just a powerful reminder for leaders around the world to take their responsibilities on our health, but also a powerful reminder to ourselves that it’s time we demand real changes to the real culprits.

“I think that it would be a fitting legacy, to bring in a new Clean Air Act and for governments — I’m not just talking about the UK government — governments around the world to take this matter seriously” said Ella’s mother.

We owe it to ourselves, the future generations to come and to all the Ellas around the world whose lives have already been lost.

So may 2021 gift us all with some hope and some systemic-change campaigning.

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If you want to find out more about campaigning and how to build strategies to achieve change — get in touch at cris@crisdelia.co.uk