Kenya not spared as air pollution among leading causes of deaths in Africa

The third edition of the Climate Justice Camp (CJC), which is in its final lap in Arusha, Tanzania, with a majority of the population being youth representing over 90 countries globally, is targeted at sharing knowledge on environment, conservation and climate change.

A mix of culture that culminates into diversity that implies lots of ideas and experience sharing.

Sharon Mbonani hails from eMbalenhle, Secunda, Mpumalanga in South Africa. She is one of the over 2,400 applicants for the 2024, and is lucky to be among the hundreds of youth whose application went through. She is a first-time climate justice camper.

Sharon’s focus is to gain more knowledge on just energy transition. She is also learning more on air pollution. Her home village is surrounded with coal mines. Secunda, Mpumalanga, is known as the coal leader in South Africa; it is host of numerous coal energy stations close together.

She is hopeful that by the end of the engagements, she will have more understanding to enlighten her community on the ongoing air pollution menace and possibilities of how to navigate and evade the dare effects of coal on air.

She is bubbly and an eloquent story teller, but when she begins to tell Citizen Digital her story, her mood changes, with tears rolling down her cheeks, almost throughout the engagement.

The 28-year-old got into full time environmental activism after losing her grandfather who raised her to adulthood and her one-month-old son around the same time.

“My grandfather was diagnosed with Cancer; we don’t have any cancer history in our lineage. I went to bed with a baby who had not shown any sign of sickness, I woke up with a lifeless body by my side; it is a really traumatizing experience,” she said.

“The doctors report said that my son's death was as a result of natural causes. I don't know how, he just woke up quiet, he just died, I don't know how but when I did my research, children, the elderly and pregnant women, are much affected by air pollution because of their weak immunity. For women it causes infertility issues, still births, miscarriages; that even shocked me because I can't do anything about it.”

Sharon says she has had to give up custody of her second born son to a faraway town in South Africa despite his tender age to save his life and keep him healthy.

“You can't have a young person complaining of hearing, we take it lightly that moment but when you look into it closely you realize ten people around you have the same problem. It boosted my interest in wanting to know about what is happening,” she said.

“Some organization came with Greenpeace and they taught us how to measure air impurities that we have in our community with a mobile air quality monitoring device. We are living in a community where we think something is brought in to help us develop our communities and give us jobs, only to realize that these companies are there to just take the money and leave us messed up economically and healthwise.”

Cynthia Moyo, Greenpeace Africa climate and energy campaigner in South Africa, says research has heavily linked coal air pollution to premature annual deaths, caused by respiratory illnesses such as bronchitis and asthma.

“The Major Air Polluters in Africa report of March 2024 indicates that two of the world's largest sulphur dioxide (So2) emission hotspots are found in South Africa, which speaks volumes of how much pollution happens in that area,” she says.

“Experts and environmental campaigners attest to have observed devastating consequences of coal air pollution on human life and the environment at large. Kids and adults are not affected in the same way because the immune system of the kids is vulnerable, that's why you will find that kids in Secunda around those coal mines suffer frequently from bronchitis and asthma, that's why we always call for a phase out of fossil fuels because they are so devastating to the health of people leaving around those areas.”

She added: “At this point it must be known that our stance against the coal mining companies and these fossil fuel giants is not just a resistance movement but it is a fight for our lives, our environment and our health.”

According to IQAiR, an air quality monitor website, as in many African countries, air pollution in Kenya is as a result of burning fossil fuels for lighting and in vehicles for transportation, burning garbage in the open, burning forests and fields and using indoor stoves.

In 2023, WHO estimated that approximately 19,000 people die each year in Kenya due to air pollution, with UNEP citing 70% pollution in Nairobi.

The report also indicated that in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, 9 out 10 people are exposed to air pollution beyond the global health standards, and that the trend reduces life expectancy hence need for urgent action to have a healthy population.

A report of March 2024 dubbed ‘Major Air Polluters in Africa Unmasked’ by Greenpeace that investigated significant human sources of air pollution across Africa, focused on major industrial and economic sectors, including the fossil fuel industry.

The major finding of the report was that air pollution is responsible for 6.7 million deaths in Africa every year.