Urgent need to cut the leaded petrol supply chain

In April 2011 the United Nations Environment Programme’s Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles (UNEP PCFV) included the following link in their Partnership Newsletter, Volume 9 Issue 1:

http://www.unep.org/Transport/PCFV/PDF/leadEvaluation_summaryreport.pdf

The following compelling reasons for immediately ending the era of leaded petrol are taken directly from that link:

The estimated global annual impacts of lead in fuels were found [by Hatfield and Tsai in a report currently being peer-reviewed and expected to be published in 2011] to be significant:

• Close to 1.1 million deaths;
• A loss of 322 million IQ points;
• Close to 60 million crime cases;
• Economic loss of USD 2.4 trillion per year (4% of global GDP)

For Africa the study concluded that the phase out of leaded gasoline had resulted in benefits amounting to USD 92 billion per year.

A 1985 report by US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that the estimated benefits of phasing out leaded gasoline exceeded the costs more than 10 times in the United States.