2012: Air polution killed over seven milliin people

Air pollution killed seven million people in 2012:
WHO

Geneva (AFP) - Air pollution by sources ranging
from cooking fires to auto fumes contributed to an
estimated seven million deaths worldwide in 2012,
the UN health agency said Tuesday.
"Air pollution, and we're talking about both indoors
and outdoors, is now the biggest environmental
health problem, and it's affecting everyone, both
developed and developing countries," said Maria
Neira, the World Health Organization's public and
environmental health chief.
Globally, pollution was linked to one death in eight
in 2012, new WHO research found.
The biggest pollution-related killers were heart
disease, stroke, pulmonary disease and lung
cancer.
The hardest-hit regions of the globe were what the
WHO labels Southeast Asia, which includes India
and Indonesia, and the Western Pacific, ranging
from China and South Korea to Japan and the
Philippines.
Together, they accounted for 5.9 million deaths.
The global death toll included 4.3 million deaths
due to indoor air pollution, chiefly caused by
cooking over coal, wood and biomass stoves.
The toll from outdoor pollution was 3.7 million,
with sources ranging from coal heating fires to
diesel engines.
Many people are exposed to both indoor and
outdoor pollution, the WHO said, and due to that
overlap the separate death toll attributed to the two
sources cannot simply be added together, hence
the figure of seven million deaths.
The new figure is "shocking and worrying", Neira
told reporters.
When it last released an estimate for deaths
related to air pollution, in 2008, the agency had put
the figure related to outdoor pollution at 1.3
million, while the number blamed on indoor
pollution was 1.9 million.
But a change in research methods makes
comparison difficult between the 2008 estimate
and the 2012 figures, Neira said.
In the past, for example, the WHO did not take into
account the overlap between exposure to both
forms, and only assessed urban pollution.
Satellite imagery has made it easier to assess rural
pollution, and new knowledge about the health
impact of exposure has enabled a better count.
- 'Can't buy bottled air' -
"The risks from air pollution are now far greater
than previously thought or understood, particularly
for heart disease and strokes," said Neira.
"Few risks have a greater impact on global health
today than air pollution. The evidence signals the
need for concerted action to clean up the air we all
breathe."
According to the WHO, some 2.9 billion people in
poor nations live in homes that use fires as their
principle method of cooking and heating.
Carlos Dora, the WHO's public and environmental
health coordinator, said that turned homes into
"combustion chambers".
Simple measures to stem the impact include so-
called "clean cook stoves", which are a low-tech
option, as well as improved ventilation, he said.
Countries also need to rethink policies, Dora said,
pointing to the impact in the developed world of a
shift to cleaner power sources, more efficient
management of energy demand, and technical
strides in the auto industry.
He also said transport policies needed a shake-up.
With air pollution having sparked a recent scare in
France, leading to restrictions on car use and the
temporary scrapping of public transport fees in
Paris, Dora said such measures could be applied
in the longer term.
"You can't buy clean air in a bottle," he said.
"The air is a shared resource. In order to breathe
clean air, we have to have interventions in the
areas that pollute air."
The WHO said it planned by the end of this year to
release a ranking of the world's 1,600 most
polluted cities.