The COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and wars have combined to hamper global governments’ plans to reduce tobacco use, derailing efforts to get an estimated 95 million people to stop smoking, a report endorsed by 57 campaign groups said on Friday. Governments had planned to reduce smoking rates among people over 15 by 30% between 2010 and 2025 as part of an action plan tied to global sustainable development targets agreed in 2015.
But the timeline to achieve the goal was extended an extra five years in 2024 as other priorities pushed countries to divert resources away from implementing a World Health Organization treaty on tobacco control signed by 168 countries.
“This … delay represents an estimated 95 million additional tobacco users, who would otherwise have quit by 2025,” said the report, submitted to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, which oversees global sustainable development.
While governments have succeeded in reducing the number of smokers, the failure to hit the 30% reduction target means that 1,207,800,000 people are still smoking globally, instead of the target of 1,112,400,000, based on smoking rates and population figures provided in the report.
Published by Action on Smoking and Health Canada and endorsed by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, Cancer Research U.K. and others, the report warned the delays could result in millions of additional deaths from tobacco use if sustained. The U.N. has already acknowledged that funding shortfalls, geopolitical tensions and pandemic-linked disruptions have pushed the world off track on most of the 17 wide-ranging sustainable development goals. Those goals aim, among other things, to reduce poverty and hunger and increase access to healthcare and education.
The groups that endorsed ASH Canada’s report urged governments to redouble their efforts on tobacco control policies such as tax increases and smoking bans.