Asia key battleground in fight against air pollution: UN

BANGKOK: Asia is a critical battlefield in the global fight to rein in air pollution, registering about 5 million premature deaths each year, delegates at a United Nations conference said on Wednesday, as urged tougher enforcement of curbs.

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls air pollution the greatest environmental risk to human health. About 90 percent of related deaths take place in low- and middle-income countries, most of them in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

“There is a sense that if you’re developing economically it doesn’t mean that you have to live in a city where you can’t breathe the air,” Dechen Tsering, the Asia-Pacific director of the UN Environment program, said at the two-day event. “There is also a growing sense that there are technologies, there is financing (to help),” said Tsering, adding that the region was a key battleground in the fight.