In a lecture hosted by the Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Sri Ramachandra University, Dr. Smith said that on the contrary climate change worries should make actions to address health issues even more urgent. Dr. Smith pointed out that as the major health impact of climate change would essentially aggravate the background of disease, especially in poorer regions, accelerated health initiatives would not only help achieve Millennium Development Goals but also mitigate the climate change fallout.

Noting that commitments to scale down greenhouse pollutant emissions in several sectors carried health co-benefits, Dr. Smith called for ways to explore how climate mitigation investments can be leveraged to achieve the MDGs, most importantly reduction of child and maternal mortality.

The environmental health expert pointed out how addressing the issue of incomplete combustion of household fuels such as biomass and coal — responsible for the bulk of black carbon emissions — had a health co-benefit by reducing exposure of women and children to high levels of particulates, gases and noxious pollutants.

Citing the World Health Organisation’s Comparative Risk Assessment index of 2004 that estimated that about 9.50 lakh children died each year from acute lower respiratory infections such as pneumonia while about 6.50 lakh women died prematurely owing to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and lung cancer, Dr. Smith called for programmes to distribute low-emission cooking stoves could significantly lower premature child and maternal deaths in developing countries. Dr. Smith also advocated empowering women with the choice of birth spacing as studies had shown that extending birth spacing could significantly lower child mortality in the developing world.