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Humanitarian action offers the opportunity to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain human dignity during and after man-made crises and natural disasters. It also offers the chance to prevent and strengthen preparedness for future emergencies.

High up in the Swiss mountains, under a cloudless sky, surrounded by a bold rocky landscape, over 70 professionals from the fashion industry gathered to explore ways to make the trade more sustainable. Though it seems like nothing could threaten this beautiful age-old scenery, dark clouds hang over the fashion and textile business.

In a country whose sovereign territory is almost 100 per cent ocean, there are an unexpected number of cars, trucks and motorcycles packed into the Maldivian capital. Some 70,000 vehicles buzz around the roads of Malé, one of the world’s smallest and most densely populated capital cities. That’s almost one vehicle for every two people living on the small, cramped atoll.

Chemicals are an integral part of our lives and are present in most of the products we use every day in our homes. In the bathroom for example, formaldehyde often sits in shampoo, microbeads in toothpaste, phthalates in nail polish and antimicrobials in soaps, while the medicine cabinet contains a myriad of synthetic pharmaceuticals. In the kitchen, a juicy strawberry may carry traces of up to 20 different pesticides.

Exposure to asbestos has been a long-standing issue, threatening the health of both the environment and human population for centuries. Hundreds of millions of people are exposed to the toxin worldwide each year, despite its known health risks.

Countries across the world must urgently adopt emissions controls and air monitoring systems for the worst pollutants, if they are to grapple with the growing problem of air pollution causing millions of deaths each year, five national academies have said.

“Our world is swamped by harmful plastic waste. Microplastics in the seas now outnumber stars in our galaxy. From remote islands to the Artic, nowhere is untouched. If present trends continue, by 2050, our oceans will have more plastic than fish. The message is simple: reject single use plastic. Refuse what you can't reuse. Together, we can chart a path to a cleaner, greener world,” said United Nations Secretary General António Guterres.

Inger Andersen, Executive Director, UN Environment Programme There is something in the air. I am not talking about pollution or greenhouse gas emissions. I am talking about the change humanity needs to address these and other environmental challenges, which have placed our planet and societies in imminent peril.

When people think of the Caribbean, it’s the turquoise seas, clean beaches, coral reefs teeming with fish, turtles and balmy breezes that come to mind. For us, this paradise is what we call home. We depend upon its riches for sustenance and, often, to make a living. It is the origin of much of the pride we feel when we say we are from the Caribbean.

Buying carbon credits in exchange for a clean conscience while you carry on flying, buying diesel cars and powering your homes with fossil fuels is being challenged by people concerned about climate change.

From clean-ups in Tokyo to tree planting in Zimbabwe, World Environment Day was celebrated around the globe. With a theme of air pollution, China hosted the international day of action. Xi Jinping, the country’s president, was clear in his call for international cooperation: “Humankind only has one planet. Environmental conservation and sustainable development are the common responsibility of all countries.

To fight air pollution, a global menace that claims 7 million lives each year, everybody has to do their part – from governments, to businesses to individuals. To mark this year’s World Environment Day, Veolia—a global waste management group with 171,000 employees in 40 countries—has thrown considerable weight behind the movement to clear the air.

Chemicals are all around us. They keep our homes clean, produce better goods, improve health care and are major contributors to national and world economies.  As the world’s population approaches 8 billion, the sound management of chemicals and waste is becoming ever more important—especially as they can affect air quality.

In China’s Hebei province the Xiong’an New Area is being built sustainably from the ground up. Designed to absorb urban pressure from Beijing, the city itself will run on 100% renewable energy.

Deep inside the layers of ice sitting atop the Andes Mountains in Peru is evidence of the earliest human-caused air pollution. Within the core of the 1,200-year-old Quelccaya Ice Cap, scientists have found traces of lead and mercury, the chemicals used after the Spanish occupation, in the silver mines of Potosi, Bolivia.

Air pollution causes nearly 5,000 premature deaths in group of cities. On average, people living in the Western Balkan cities studied lose up to 1.3 years of life to air pollution. The main sources of particulate matter emissions are thermal power plants that use lignite coal and household heating. Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 4 June 2019 – Air pollution is directly responsible for up to

“Oh, here comes one now,” the engineer says, pointing up. In a blink, a capsule about the size of a paint can has shot across the ceiling in a pneumatic tube. Inside is a sample of soil collected from one of hundreds of monitoring spots across Jiangsu province, on China’s central eastern coast.

In September 2015, the sky above Kalimantan, Indonesia, turned a dark yellow as fires swept across the region’s peatlands emitting a dense haze. The streets became empty of people and the air— thick with smoke—difficult to breathe. “Whenever I recall that moment, it's always traumatic for me,” Emmanuela Shinta, a youth Dayak activist who was in Kalimantan that day, told UN Environment. “Our city became like a dead city.”

Air pollution is all around us. Indoors, outdoors, in cities and in the countryside. It affects us all, whether we realize it or not. For the longest time, we have taken the air we breathe for granted. There was air, there were smells, there was cold wind, there was hot air.

When air pollution hit alarming levels in India four years back, 30 year-old Tamseel Hussain was watching. So passionate was he about documenting the issue, that he and a group of mobile storytelling and social media experts built the platform Let Me Breathe.

One hundred years ago, Bangkok was in the throes of a public transit overhaul. For centuries prior, Bangkokians had used the web of canals—or khlongs—throughout the city as a primary means of transportation. In the early 1900s, the city gradually stopped dredging new canals and started filling in others to pave the way for a new mode of transportation: the automobile.

Before moving to Los Angeles and initiating a successful career in music production with Shania Twain, Wyclef Jean, Shakira and many other artists, Sadaharu Yagi grew up in the Japanese town of Kitakyushu. In the 1960s, the city faced huge environmental problems—and the highest levels of air pollution in the country.

Transportation produces 25 per cent of emissions in Latin America and the Caribbean.  With the air of most of the region’s capital cities becoming literally unbreathable, biking has captured the imagination of thousands of Latin Americans. Four of the main capitals have taken steps to promote sustainable mobility options to beat air pollution and are encouraging pedaling as a concrete measure to clean the air.

Agra, Uttar Pradesh, June 3, 2019 – Kickstarting the World Environment Day celebrations in India, a comprehensive action plan to control air pollution was launched in Agra, one of India’s most polluted cities and home to the majestic Taj Mahal.

June 5th 2019 was the day the world took action to #BeatAirPollution.