According to the Word Bank data and information, air pollution creates high costs in Latin America and Caribbean Region. For you to have an idea about it, air pollution costs equivalent to 2% of GDP of the regions.

The worst fact is that air pollution cause between 500,000 to 1 million premature deaths each year. More than 100 million people in Latin America cities are exposed to higher standards of air pollution than what is the maximum acceptable.

But, what are the reasons of this tragedy for human well being? They are:

1.       Growing of urban centers

2.       Inadequate land-use

3.       Inadequate transport planning

4.       Poor fuel quality

5.       Energy intensive productive activities

6.       Improper air quality management capacity.

And you know who are the most affected because of air pollution? They are:

1.       The Elderly

2.        The Poor

3.       The children

4.       The sick.

The World Bank intends and is working out to achieve development on energy efficiency, proper land using planning and sustainable transport. The entity has done several initiatives regarding the issue.

 For instance, in 1998, the World Bank launched the program "Clean Air Initiative for Latin America and the Caribbean". Since that historical moment, a lot of other programs and projects started to gain perspective and to be developed.

 Brazil, Colombia and Peru are nations which taking the issue more seriously in comparison with the other Latin countries. Hopefully, all nations around the world can draw attention to the importance of making a clean air for humans, animals, trees and conservation of water resources.

Programs and projects are being created in order to change the actual negative perspective. In particular, I believe that education is the main tool to change any sort of problem. Nevertheless, that is something in which is for long term results and sometimes, because of that, there is no benefit for stakeholders in a global and region system.

Therefore, let's start by changing our life, our actions and our mind to achieve a "green air" goal.

 

Source: The World Bank