Air pollution killed 238,000 Europeans prematurely in 2020

Fine particle air pollution led to 238,000 premature deaths in the European Union in 2020, the bloc’s environmental watchdog said Thursday, a slight rise from the previous year.

Across the 27-nation bloc that year, “exposure to concentrations of fine particulate matter above the 2021 World Health Organization guideline level resulted in 238,000 premature deaths,” the European Environment Agency said in a new report.

That was slightly more than those recorded in 2019 in the EU, despite a fall in emissions due to Covid curbs.
Fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, is a term for fine particulates that are typically the by-product of car exhausts or coal-fired power plants.

Their tiny size enables them to travel deep into the respiratory tract, worsening the risk of bronchitis, asthma and lung disease.