Prof. Sotiris Vardoulakis
Australian National University

Climate change, biomass smoke and air pollution: Implications for global public health

ABSTRACT

There is increasing scientific consensus that climate change is the underlying cause of the prolonged heatwaves that have increased the risk of extreme wildfires in Australia, North America, Southern Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Amazon. With prolonged droughts and record-breaking temperatures, extreme wildfire events are likely to become more frequent and intense in the future, releasing large quantities of smoke and negatively affecting air quality and global health. Additionally, agricultural fires are causing seasonal smog in India, Southeast Asia and other regions, further deteriorating outdoor air quality. Another major source of indoor and outdoor air pollution in many communities in India and globally is the domestic use of biomass for cooking and heating. In Australia, wood heaters is a dominant source of particulate air pollution (PM2.5) causing a disproportional burden on health, the environment and the economy. A wide range of interventions have been proposed for reducing population exposure to biomass smoke emitted from different sources, including air filtration, structural and occupancy changes in the built environment, facemasks, air pollution alerts, and behavioural adaptation measures. This presentation explores the sources, exposure levels and health impacts of biomass smoke in a variety of settings, as well as interventions aiming to protect public health from biomass smoke.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Sotiris Vardoulakis is Professor of Global Environmental Health at the Australian National University (ANU), Director of the HEAL (Healthy Environments And Lives) National Research Network, and Adjunct Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He is co-Director of the Clean Air and Planetary Health in Asia (CEPHA) Network, the Clean Energy for Healthy Environments And Lives (CE4HEAL) partnership and the International Consortium for Urban Environmental Health and Sustainability (Healthy-Polis). Previously he was Director of Research and Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Occupational Health at the Institute of Occupational Medicine in Edinburgh, and before that Head of the Environmental Change Department at Public Health England. He also held academic positions at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Birmingham. Professor Vardoulakis’ main research interests include climate change, air pollution and health, sustainable cities, exposure assessment, health impact assessment, environmental epidemiology, and public health communication and policy. He was one of the lead authors of the first UK Climate Change Risk Assessment and contributor to the National Adaptation Programme. He served as a member of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE, UK) Public Health Advisory Committee on Air Pollution and of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Working Group on Indoor Air Quality. He is a currently a Coordinating Lead Author of the UNEP Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-7) Air Chapter.