Polluted air kills nearly 9m people every year

Air quality linked to cancer, diabetes and chronic lung disease Air pollution is a bigger global killer than smoking, research shows. A new study suggests that 8.8m deaths per year around the world can be attributed to dirty air, chiefly fine sooty particles pouring out of vehicle exhausts, factories and power plants.

Co-author Professor Thomas Munzel, from the University Medical Centre Mainz in Germany, said: “To put this into perspective, this means that air pollution causes more extra deaths a year than tobacco smoking, which the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates was responsible for an extra 7.2m deaths in 2015. Smoking is avoidable but air pollution is not.”