Air pollution ‘kills more than 2 million people every year’

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Pedestrians wear masks in Beijing as the city is engulfed in smog and air quality is rated ‘hazardous’. Photograph: How Hwee Young/EPA

Climate change only partly to blame, say scientists, as sooty particles and ozone account for most deaths

More than 2 million deaths occur globally each year as a direct result of air pollution from human activity, a team of international scientists has said.

But climate change has only made a small contribution to the lethal effects, according to the study published on Friday in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

It suggests that 2.1 million people die after inhaling fine sooty particles called PM2.5s generated by diesel engines, power plants and coal fires.

Another 470,000 are thought to be killed by high levels of ozone, created when vehicle exhaust gases react with oxygen.

Dr Jason West from the University of North Carolina said: “Our estimates make outdoor air pollution among the most important environmental risk factors for health.

See on www.guardian.co.uk