According to the Greenpeace Southeast Asia report, 1,60,000 people in the 5 most populous cities of the world died prematurely. The main reason behind it is the presence of Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5) in large quantities in the air, which directly reaches the lungs and affects them. In India, Delhi is unquestionably the most polluted city and as per the reports, the highest number of deaths, 54,000 deaths, were recorded in the city as a result of air pollution. Tokyo, the capital city of Japan ranks second in the list of highest deaths due to air pollution, with 40,000 untimely deaths. Tokyo ranking second is quite surprising as the Olympic games were going to be held there last year and efforts are being made by the government for the past five years to control the pollution levels. Other countries that follow are Shanghai in China, Sao Paulo in Brazil, and Mexico City in Mexico.
Another surprising thing is that all these figures from the year 2020, when the whole world was struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic and all the social and economic activities were restricted due to the lockdown imposed by many countries. Last year, for quite a long time, the levels of air pollution in all the regions of the world were almost negligible and many articles related to a pollution-free society were written.
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Last year, Greenpeace SouthEast Asia and the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air jointly published a report, which stated that according to an assessment in 2018, air pollution due to the burning of fossil fuels cost $8 billion to the world’s economy every day, i.e. $290 billion every year, which is 3.3% of the world’s economy.
Furthermore, according to this report, 4.5 million people die prematurely due to air pollution, of which 18 lakh people are from china and 10 lakh are from India. Earlier, the World Health Organization also stated that 42 lakh people die prematurely due to air pollution in the world. Another study suggested that the amount of polluted air that people living in Delhi inhale is equal to the smoke produced by 10 cigarettes. The PM2.5 pollution alone costs the world to lose $2 billion, while nitrogen dioxide costs $350 billion and ozone costs $380 billion. Of the total deaths worldwide, 29% of them are associated with air pollution.
According to the recently published report titled State of Global Air 2020, more than 5 lakh newborns around the world die due to air pollution, and children who survive these extreme levels of air pollution suffer from many health conditions in their childhood. Air pollution also has a rather harmful effect on the fetus in the womb, resulting in premature labor or lower weight of the newborn, and both these reasons are a leading cause of infant deaths. Most such deaths occur in developing countries. According to the report published by the Health Effects Institute, the effect of air pollution on the elderly has been studied in detail, but relatively little is known about its effects on infants.
Indoor pollution is the cause of two-thirds of the total deaths of newborns from air pollution. What is to be noted here is that in all the developing countries including India, neither have any studies related to the air pollution inside the house nor are there any guidelines to deal with it. The main cause of air pollution inside the houses in the kitchen located within the four walls, where food is cooked using biofuels like wood, cow dung, etc.