Actions are underway in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Environment Assembly to spur many more to help fight health threat
The Environment Assembly will focus on fighting pollution – in air, land and water - across the globe this December. All UN member states and a wide range of stakeholders are invited to agree on resolutions guiding UN Environment’s work for the coming years at the event, which is the highest-level decision-making body on the environment in the world.
Poor air quality is now the greatest environmental health risk to the pan-European population, and is responsible for 44,000 deaths each year in Bosnia and Herzegovina alone[i].
To help fight the problem, UN Environment has opened two new air quality monitoring stations in the Bosnian cities of Prijedor and Goražde and brought two existing ones in Ivan Sedlo and Banja Luka back to full function.
Solar e-benches were earlier installed together with UNDP across Sarajevo for people to access data on air quality in the surrounding area, use a streetlight and recharge their phone and body. The benches were built by the 20-year-old Croatian Ivan Mrvoš together with classmates.
Anyone – whether passers-by or those accessing the information online – can therefore now check on the quality of the air breathed in the city, as well as measure the impact of policy measures tackling air pollution across the country. We hope to put the planet on track to carry out many more such measures following the 2017 Environment Assembly!
Find out more on air quality challenges and solutions from p.61 of the sixth Global Environment Outlook report for the pan-European region.
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[i] European Environment Agency , 2015 data
