Priority Actions Towards Breathing Clean Air, Protecting Public Health and Ensuring a Healthy Environment

This report on "Priority actions towards breathing clean air, protecting public health and ensuring a health environment" was published by the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, Astrid Puentes Riaño.

Breathing clean air is vital for all. Science has unequivocally proven that air pollution poses significant risks to public health, especially for persons in vulnerable situations, and to a healthy environment. The public health crisis can be solved and further risks prevented, as evidenced by research and improved monitoring and governance to tackle main drivers linked to a fossil-fuel-dependent economy and unsustainable activities. Stronger measures to improve air quality, prioritizing health to protect people, must be urgently implemented by States, aligned with their international and human rights obligations. The duty of private actors to support these efforts, and their urgent responsibility to prevent, reduce and remediate pollution, must also be underscored.