373 civil society and Indigenous Peoples organizations from 74 countries urged leaders at a historic global conference to act with urgency to phase out Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs), a particular group of pesticides that cause the most severe harm to human health and the environment and are considered too dangerous for use.
Today, the Commission published its Zero Pollution Action Plan for air, water and soils (ZPAP).
Anne Stauffer, Director for Strategy and Campaigns at HEAL commented:
“The European Commission today has thrown out all the buzzwords on zero pollution – but behind the noise hides zero adequate action, which does not address the magnitude of health impacts of pollution: Insufficient commitment to acting without delay, insufficient commitment to letting science drive policy ambition and insufficient commitment to ending the financial support to pollution. Take air quality, for example – aiming at 55% reduction of health impacts from air pollution by 2030 is simply status quo: this is not the ambition level health groups expect to tackle the leading cause of health harm from environmental pollution. What is urgently needed is full alignment of EU’s legally binding air quality standards with the regularly updated WHO guidelines and the latest science.”
Find HEAL’s position on zero pollution here, outlining why we need to beat pollution today to prevent disease tomorrow, for everyone.
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