Environment Pollution contributes to one in five deaths
Madrid and its metropolitan area is the urban area in Europe with the highest mortality burden attributable to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) air pollution, the main source of which comes from road traffic,
especially diesel vehicles.
This is reflected in a study carried out by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation, which updates an investigation originally published last January in the journal 'The Lancet Planetary Health', when The researchers pointed out that European cities
could avoid up to 51,000 premature deaths a year
if they then followed the air quality guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO), in force since 2005.
However,
the WHO tightened the recommended levels of air quality last September in
order to avoid millions of deaths due to air pollution, considering it one of the greatest environmental threats to human health along with climate change.
The guidelines lower the recommended level of PM2.5 compared to 2005 (from 10 to 5 micrograms per cubic meter in annual mean concentration) and NO2 (from 40 to 10 micrograms per cubic meter per year).
Current European directives are more lax, with 25 micrograms in fine particles and 40 in nitrogen dioxide.
1,000 CITIES
The new ISGlobal study, published in the middle of the Glasgow Climate Summit (known as COP26) and which is based on the same 1,000 locations in the January study, indicates that European cities
could avoid an additional 114,000 premature deaths
each year by meeting the new WHO air quality guidelines, specifically 57,975 for PM2.5 and 56,130 for NO2 compared to previous recommendations.
In the ranking of the European cities with the highest burden of mortality attributable to NO2,
there are three in Spain: Madrid
and its metropolitan area, which leads the table;
Barcelona
and its metropolitan area, in sixth position, and
Mollet del Vallés,
in seventh.
Behind the Spanish capital are Antwerp (Belgium), Turin (Italy), Paris and its metropolitan area (France) and Milan and its metropolitan area (Italy).
In the classification of cities with the highest mortality from PM2.5, there is none in Spain.
That list is led by Brescia (Italy), followed by Bergamo (Italy), Karviná (Czechia), Vicenza (Italy) and Metropolis of Silesia (Poland).
On the contrary, the cities
with the least mortality
associated with NO2 are Tromso (Norway), Umea (Sweden), Oulu (Finland), Kristiansand (Norway) and Pula (Croatia).
And those with the lowest lethal burden due to PM2.5 turn out to be Reykjavik (Iceland) and the aforementioned Tromso, Umea and Oulu.
"Although
there is no safe exposure threshold
below which air pollution becomes safe, these new results show how the new WHO global air quality guidelines offer a much better framework for protecting human health. and prevent large numbers of deaths, "says
Sasha Khomenko, a
researcher at ISGlobal and first author of the new study.
The new data shows that the number of preventable deaths is much higher if the new WHO reference levels are adopted as targets.
This effect is more palpable in the case of NO2, since Madrid would go from avoiding 206 deaths per year if the old WHO recommendations were met to
1,311 deaths with the new guidelines.
Antwerp would go from 22 to 171, Turin from 34 to 386, Paris from 185 to 1,440, Milan from 103 to 1,218 and Barcelona from 82 to 1,034.
ALMOST 100% OF THE POPULATION
A statistic that shows how far European cities have to go to achieve clean air is the percentage of the population that lives in areas with concentrations of air pollutants higher than those recommended by the WHO.
While under the previous WHO recommendations this percentage was 84% for PM2.5 and 9% for NO2, with the new guidelines these figures rise to 99.8% and 99.7% of the urban population, respectively. .
It should be noted, however, that the study was based on
air pollution data in 2015.
"Given that current levels of air pollution in European cities are putting more than 100,000 lives at risk each year, the EU should align its legislation to match the WHO recommendations," says
Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, lead
author of the study. and director of ISGlobal's Urban Planning, Environment and Health Initiative.
Nieuwenhuijsen stresses that, "in turn, local, regional and national governments must make reducing air pollution a priority."
"We urgently need to reduce the use of fossil fuels, eliminate private cars and add more green spaces in our cities. This will not only reduce air pollution, but will also contribute to climate action, which is one of our highest priorities for the humanity, "he adds.
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