Global Chemicals Outlook - UNEP

External implications and cost of inaction for human health and environment: large with heavy burden
on individual and public budgets
The UNEP Cost of Inaction Report (2012) gathered and
examined available primary data containing relevant monetized
or quantifi ed external cost information related to chemical
mismanagement. The vast majority of human health costs linked
to chemical production, consumption and disposal are not
borne by chemical producers, or shared down the value-chain.
a) Poor management of chemicals
across their lifecycles comes with
a price paid for by individuals,
important economic sectors and
public budgets, including through
poor health and degraded
ecosystem health and productivity.
For example, one study suggests
that the major economic and
environmental losses due to the use
of pesticides in the United States
amounted to USD $1.5 billion
in pesticides resistance and USD
$1.4 billion in crop losses, and
USD $2.2 billion in bird losses,
amongst other costs. Another
study in China cites the effect of
acute water pollution incidents on
commercial fi sheries which has
US$ 236.3 billion: global
environmental external costs
from ‘global human activity’
producing VOCs;
US$ 22 billion: global
environmental external costs
from mercury emissions.
US$2.1billion:
Disability-Adjusted
Life Years (DALYs)
costs of children’s
exposures to lead
in Africa, Latin
America and South
East Asia;
US$108 billion: IQbased
lost economic
productivity due
to childhood lead
exposures in the
same regions.
been estimated at approximately USD $634 million (4
billion Yuan) for one year.
b) Health care in many
low- and middle-income
countries is hospital-centered
and focused on patients who
have reached the point of
acute stress or have long-term
complications. Given the rising
chemical intensity in these
countries and the epidemic of
chronic diseases, especially
Uncompensated harm to human health and the environment are
market failures that need correction. The study indicates that
these ‘spillover’ costs of inaction on chemicals policies are large
and draws the following conclusions:
in children, that emerged
contemporaneously
with increasing use
of chemicals in the
developed countries,
this is liable to be an
increasingly expensive
US$ 90 billion:
Projected total costs of
illness and injury for
pesticides users in the
sub-Saharan African
region from 2015 to
2020.
approach to public health administration in the future.
New evidence on health costs from pesticides in sub-
Saharan Africa gives an indication of just how large.
UNEP Cost of Inaction Report (2012) used available
data to make a conservative estimate for pesticide users on
smallholdings in sub-Saharan Africa. It reveals that the costs
of injury (lost work days, outpatient medical treatment, and
inpatient hospitalization) from pesticide poisonings, in this
region alone, amounted to USD $4.4 billion in 2005. This
is an underestimate as it
does not include the costs
of lost livelihoods and
lives, environmental health
effects, and effects of
other chemicals. In 2009,
Overseas Development
Assistance (ODA) to health
in sub-Saharan Africa
amounted to USD $10.3
billion. Excluding HIV/
AIDS, total assistance
to basic health services
approximated USD $4.8
billion.
A conservative projection
of the 2005 estimate to
2009 shows costs of
injury due to pesticide
poisoning in sub-Saharan
Africa to be USD $6.2
billion. This suggests that
the total ODA to general
healthcare is exceeded by
costs of inaction related
to current pesticide use
alone.
29