At the end of last month, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution recognising that a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a human right. The Assembly called upon countries, international organisations, businesses and others to enhance international cooperation to ensure cleaner land, air and water for all.
It comes ahead of the first meeting in October of a new international task force on air pollution, which also aims to strengthen international cooperation.
Increasingly, the boundary-defying nature of pollution is being recognised. A smoke stack in one country chokes the air of neighbouring nations almost as much as its own. It’s a situation Southeast Asia is intimately familiar with: forest fires in Indonesia often blanketing the region in smoke at this time of year.
