I. Introduction and Background

Air pollution is emerging as one of the main causes of deaths and serious ailments in the world. Emissions that cause air pollution and are Greenhouse Gases are also the main factor causing climate change. Therefore, reducing air pollution should be of the highest priorities, both globally and nationally.

Recent research is showing that air pollution is the number one environmental cause of human deaths and kills more people annually than road accidents, violence, fires and wars combined.

This “silent killer” is not as dramatic or visible as car crashes, murders, terrorist attacks or natural disasters, but it is nevertheless even more dangerous as it contaminates vital organs, causing serious diseases and deaths to many millions of people.

Altogether 6.5 million people worldwide are estimated by the World Health Organization to have died prematurely in 2012 because of air pollution. There was a total of 56 million deaths worldwide in 2012. This means that 11.6% of all deaths worldwide, or one in nine, were attributable to air pollution, outdoor and indoor combined. In comparison, there were 5 million deaths from all injuries including from road accidents (1.3 million deaths), falls, fires, and war in 2012, according to WHO data.

In several WHO documents, it was estimated that there are 4.3 million deaths attributable to indoor pollution and another 3.7 million deaths to outdoor pollution. The number of outdoor pollution deaths has most recently been revised to 3 million.

Because some deaths may be due to both outdoor and indoor pollution, it is not possible to add up the two figures to obtain the total deaths. Thus in its latest estimate (September 2016), the WHO has explained that there were 6.5 million deaths from both outdoor and indoor air pollution in 2012.

With 11.6% of total deaths annually attributed to it, air pollution is one of the top (if not the top) causes of deaths in the world. Tobacco use is usually described as the world’s leading preventable cause of death; it is responsible for nearly 6 million deaths annually, or around 10% of total deaths. Air pollution may have taken over as the world’s leading cause of death.

A new UNICEF study (released on 31 October 2016) has also revealed that air pollution is a major contributing factor in the deaths of around 600,000 children under five every year, and around 2 billion children live in areas where outdoor air pollution exceeded the WHO air quality guidelines.

Besides its threat to human lives and health, air pollution is also the major cause of climate change as it is responsible for much of the Greenhouse Gas emissions. At current rates of emissions, there will be a rise in global temperature of far more than 1 or 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial era levels, and this is widely believed to have the potential to cause catastrophic effects to the global environment, food supplies and also to human health.

Read the full South Centre report (pdf below).