Status: 15.11.2021 02:03 a.m.
According to the EU Environment Agency, around 178,000 deaths could have been prevented in 2019 if all EU countries had complied with the WHO air quality guidelines. But the analysis also shows that the air is getting better and better.
According to environmental experts, improved air quality would prevent a number of premature deaths due to pollution. As announced by the EU Environment Agency EEA, an estimated 307,000 people died prematurely in the European Union in 2019 as a result of the pollution of their ambient air with fine dust (PM2.5), including tens of thousands in Germany.
More than half of these premature deaths in the EU – around 178,000 or 58 percent – could theoretically have been prevented if all EU member states had complied with the new guidelines set by the World Health Organization.
The WHO had made its recommended limit values for pollutants in the air much stricter in September. What the organization considers to be justifiable in terms of health is therefore even more significantly below the EU guideline values currently applicable in Germany.
40,400 deaths from nitrogen dioxide pollution
According to the information, in 2019, in addition to the 307,000 premature deaths due to fine dust, 40,400 others were due to chronic exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and 16,800 from ground-level ozone (O3).
These values should not be added up because of possible double counting. In the case of Germany, the Environment Agency gives these numbers as 53,800, 6000 and 3350.
The number of deaths has been falling for years
In a comprehensive analysis, the Copenhagen-based EEA also underlined that air quality in Europe was better in 2019 than in 2018. In 2018, the authority had given the number of deaths at 346,000. According to the EEA, the decline of more than ten percent is partly due to favorable weather conditions, but mainly due to the ongoing improvement in air quality in Europe.
In the early 1990s, nearly one million people died prematurely every year in the 27 EU countries. By 2005 that number had already dropped to 450,000.