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Air Pollution

Air Pollution. Air pollution kills an estimated 2.7 million to 3.0 million people every year — about 6% of all deaths annually. Source: UN Human Development Report New York, UN, 1998.

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Air Pollution

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  1. Air Pollution Air pollution kills an estimated 2.7 million to 3.0 million people every year — about 6% of all deaths annually Source: UN Human Development Report New York, UN, 1998

  2. About 9 deaths in every 10 due to air pollution take place in the developing world, where about 80% of all people live Source: UN Human development report, New York, UN, 1998

  3. In many developing countries, atmospheric pollution is a serious hazard—responsible for at least 2 million deaths annually.

  4. Curbing both outdoor and indoor air pollution would improve health substantially. Source: Hinrichsen, D. & Robey, B. Population and the Environment: The Global Challenge, Population Reports, Series M, No. 15. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Population Information Program, 2000.

  5. About 2.5 billion people, almost all in developing countries, suffer from high levels of indoor air pollution • Indoor air pollution is due to burning wood, animal dung, crop residues, and coal for cooking and heating.

  6. Outdoor air pollution harms more than 1.1 billion people, mostly in cities Reproduced from Hinrichsen, D. & Robey, B. Population and the Environment: The Global Challenge, Population Reports, Series M, No. 15. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Population Information Program, 2000.

  7. The World Health Organization estimates that about 700,000 deaths annually could be prevented in developing countries if three major atmospheric pollutants were brought down to safer levels: • carbon monoxide, • suspended particulate matter, • lead

  8. The direct health cost of urban air pollution in developing countries was estimated in 1995 at nearly US$100 billion a year. • Chronic bronchitis alone accounted for around US$40 billion • Source: UN Human Development Report New York, UN, 1998

  9. In cities that lack pollution controls, millions of people are at risk from outdoor pollution. • Densely populated and rapidly growing cities such as Bangkok, Manila, Mexico City, and New Delhi are often entombed in a pall of pollution from trucks and cars and from uncontrolled industrial emissions.

  10. In 1995, for example, the average ozone concentration in Mexico City was about 0.15 parts per million, 10 times the natural atmospheric concentration and twice the maximum permitted in Japan or the US Source: UN Human Development Report New York, UN, 1998

  11. Ozone is a powerful secondary pollutant formed when oxides of nitrogen and unburned volatile organic hydrocarbons, mostly from vehicle exhausts, combine with oxygen under the action of sunlight. Ozone is a main component of smog.

  12. Another powerful secondary pollutant is acid rain, formed when sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen combine with water vapor and oxygen in the presence of sunlight to form a diluted "soup" of sulfuric and nitric acids.

  13. They can fall as both: • wet (acid rain) or • dry deposition.

  14. Other harmful pollutants include: • sulfur dioxide, • suspended particulate matter (soot, ash, and smoke from fires), • carbon monoxide from vehicle exhausts, and • lead, mainly from the exhaust of vehicles that burn leaded gasoline

  15. Air pollution is not only a health hazard but also reduces food production and timber harvests, because high levels of pollution impair photosynthesis.

  16. In Germany, for example, about US$4.7 billion a year in agricultural production is lost to high levels of sulfur, nitrogen oxides, and ozone Source: UN Human Development Report New York, UN, 1998

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