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Global Action Plan's charitable objective is to reduce carbon and climate change, so why do we do so much work around air pollution? Director of Clean Air Larissa Lockwood and Campaigns Lead Tessa Bartholomew-Good talk about the links between air pollution and climate change, what motivates us to take action. And why taking action has so many co-benefits.

There's a bit of background noise in this week's 5 minute GAP. Apologies for that distraction, but hopefully you can still enjoy this interesting chat. And if it's too distracting, don't forget that we always have the written transcript below.

 

"We Share Freely". The change we want to see in the world is bigger than we are. So, we're sharing our knowledge, resources and ideas to help more people and organisations take steps forward towards our vision of a green and thriving planet, where everyone can enjoy happy and healthy lives within the Earth's limits.

 

As part of this, we've launched our "5 Minute GAP" series, a collection of five minute conversations that will share how we work and what we're working on. We'll talk about what we're trying to achieve and why, how we function as an organisation, and the thinking behind our plans and strategy.

 

We'll be regularly sharing these conversations, which will feature different members of our team and trustee board, as well as external experts.

 

We hope you enjoy listening in to our chats, getting to know our team and finding out what makes us who we are. 

 

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Audio only version:

 

If you prefer to read rather than watch, the transcription is here: 

 

Tessa: When I tell people about my new job and the topic I'm working on, you know, they're used to me talking about smoking or mental health. And when I say air pollution, they they think of it more from like a pollution perspective. So more from the, I guess, climate change perspective rather than the health perspective. But it's been really interesting to think about how you can pull those two things together because climate change affects our health. And to be able to have a topic that can really clearly bring those two things together is quite cool and is also a challenge because it's multilayered. And the more complicated it gets, the harder it can be to just have those single minded messages to people. 

Larissa: Yeah. But an opportunity, perhaps as well, because I think for me, there's a couple of links with air pollution and climate. One, as you say, they're both really bad for your health. I mean, they kill you. We're seeing the devastating impacts of Pakistan just this week. We've seen the impacts of the heat wave across Europe this summer. And air pollution kills 7 million people every year. So it's like they're both really, really bad. And the other link and this I think is kind of interesting, to your point that it's a difficult challenge, but actually they both come from the same place. They have the same source, which is burning fossil fuels. So in a way that presents an opportunity because it means the solution has to be stopping the burning of fossil fuels, which will cut air pollutants and carbon dioxide. And the main source of both carbon emissions and nitrogen dioxide air pollution is transport. So you can start sort of narrowing it down and then look at those solutions which will have both Carbon and air pollution and health benefits. 

And it's a very powerful motivator because I think for humans to act, we have to feel sort of personal... something has to be personally relevant. And climate change, I think to most people in the UK still feels like somebody else's problem somewhere else. It's still some time away. It's happening in another country, although I think people are realizing it's getting closer and closer and it's it's today's problem. But air pollution is very here and now. You can see the cars outside the office here, outside your door at home. You know, it's very immediate and personal and is therefore a very good motivator for change.

So our work at Global Action Plan, because actually our charitable objectives are around carbon reduction and climate change. So almost our work on air pollution is kind of climate action by stealth, using air pollution as a motivator of change to engender climate action. And you get the co-benefits along the way. It's that personal way of actually getting people to care, which is excellent. 

Tessa: Yeah. We used to call it health by stealth. 

Larissa: Health by stealth? I like it! 

Tessa: We're doing climate by stealth. Or climate and health by stealth. Both of them!

Larissa: New catchphrase!

Tessa: That's really interesting.

Larissa: Yeah, well, it's. It is very tricky. I think we can look at those solutions and focus in quite a lot on particularly transport at the moment, because I think 
it's difficult, but it's possible because while in the UK most of our cities are designed around vehicles which are powered by fossil fuels, that's not the case everywhere. You know, if you look at most cities in the Netherlands, if you look at places like Barcelona, they are now prioritizing town design around people rather than vehicles, which obviously has so many other positive co-benefits. So it's all the physical activity of walking and cycling as well as cutting carbon emissions, if you switch away from cars as your primary mode of transport, promote more walking, cycling, public transport. So it can be done. We just have to start enacting that.

And there are examples of it. You know, places like Nottingham doing pretty well, places like London Borough of Waltham Forest getting into this idea of the 15 minute city, so that most of the facilities and amenities that you need are within a 15 minute walk or cycle because then you don't need a car. 

Tessa: Going back to the Village Ways. Yeah.

Larissa: Yeah, it's healthier. 

Tessa: Moving to London you see like, oh yeah, that used to be a village that used to be a village. But then the death of the high street happened. And then something kind of broke down, didn't it? 

Larissa: But people like community, they like that kind of village feel and you get more of that when you're out and about on foot and when the roads are quieter. Because you... we noticed this during the lockdowns, the COVID lockdowns, and actually did some lived experience research. And people really like taking back the public space. You know, they could actually talk to their neighbour over the street, socially distanced of course. But, you know, there weren't cars haring by. So the kids could go out and play in the street and walk in the street safely and you get to know your neighbours a bit. And it's sort of you build that social cohesion as well as kind of the exercise benefit. So it's just nicer. So it's better for us. So we just need to really prioritize that way of being.