Large percentage of world population breathes polluted air – WHO

They said on Monday that fossil fuels are responsible for most of the harmful emissions that are linked to acute and chronic sickness.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has, therefore, called for tangible steps to check the use of fossil fuels.

The UN agency also advised governments to make significant revisions to their air quality indicators.

“It has been recognised that air pollution has an impact at a much lower level than previously thought.”

“With all the new evidence that has come up over the last 15 years since the last WHO air quality guideline update, most of the values of the guidelines levels have been reduced”, Dr Sophie Gumy, Technical Officer at WHO’s Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, observed.

The agency’s data indicates that 4.2 million people die from exposure to outdoor air pollution, in addition to the 3.8 million people whose deaths are linked to household smoke produced by dirty stoves and fuels.

The UN health agency insists that momentum has been growing for better air quality everywhere in the last decade.

“Proof of this is the fact that more than 6,000 cities in 117 countries now monitor air quality, compared to 1,100 cities in 91 countries a decade ago”, it observes.

According to it, achieving cleaner air is also one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and an increasing number of UN agencies have passed resolutions, urging member states to address the health impacts of smog-filled air.

Welcoming the increasing number of cities that have begun to measure air quality for the first time, Dr Maria Neira, Director, WHO Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, said that it was particularly significant that data was also being gathered on nitrogen dioxide.

Released ahead of World Health Day on April 7, the 2022 update of the WHO’s air quality database includes for the first time ground measurements of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter with diameters equal or smaller than 10 microns (PM10) or 2.5 microns (PM2.5).

Both groups of pollutants originate mainly from human activities related to fossil fuel combustion.

The new air quality database is the most extensive yet in its coverage of air pollution exposure on the ground, WHO says.

It says further that some 2,000 more cities/human settlements now record ground monitoring data for particulate matter, PM10 and/or PM2.5, than the last update, making an almost six-fold rise in reporting since the database was inaugurated in 2011.