Currently, an average of 3.3 million people die each year due to the pollution found in outdoor air.
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The 3.3 million deaths from air pollution around the world every year could reach more than six million by 2050, researchers say.
“Our results suggest that if the projected increase in mortality attributable to air pollution is to be avoided, intensive air quality control measures will be needed, particularly in South and East Asia”, said Professor Jos Lelieveld, who led the study.
China is the leader in deaths due to air pollution, with nearly 1.4 million each year.
Stoves used to cook and heat homes – what the authors refer to as “residential and commercial energy use” – are the world’s largest contributor to deadly air pollution, researchers found.
Calculating the health and mortality effects of outdoor air pollution on a global scale is not easy, partly because air quality is not monitored in every region and the toxicity of particles varies depending on their source.
Singapore’s neighbours Indonesia, where forest fire are causing countries like Singapore and Malaysia to suffer from haze, suffered from over 50,000 premature deaths due to air pollution.
The findings were published Wednesday in the Nature journal and revealed that 6% of all global deaths happen prematurely, as a result of air contaminants.
Their results show that in India and China, for example, emissions from heating and cooking, have the largest death toll, while in much of the United States and a few other countries, emissions from traffic and power generation are crucial.
They used those to calculate the concentrations of fine particle matter in air pollution over time and from different emissions sources around the world.
Deaths because of outdoor air pollution will double globally by the year 2050 unless nations improve their clean air policies, Lelieveld and his colleagues concluded.
“This is a broader study than most so the numbers are larger”, he said.
While in the generally worst-affected Asian countries, methods of heating and cooking contribute greatly to the statistics, in the USA the number one source of lethal pollution is traffic. In the United Kingdom, almost half of all pollution-related deaths are tied to agricultural pollution, according to the study.
When these really fine particles get into the lungs they can cause them to become inflamed.
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“Everybody breathes the ambient air, so it affects everyone, so even small risks can translate into major burdens of disease”, said Michael Jerrett, a professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, Fielding School of Public Health.
