Air pollution is going to kill an awful lot of us if we don’t act

A new report published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) titled “The Economic Consequences of Air Pollution” states that air pollution could be responsible for between 6 to 9 million premature deaths by the year 2060.

Not only will polluted air impact our health, it will also have a detrimental effect on our economy. The OECD study revealed that air pollution could have an economic impact of $2.6 trillion a year by 2060, and could also cause healthcare bills to rise to $176 billion a year from its current level of $21 billion. When presenting the report, the environmental director of OECD, Simon Upton, stated the following:

“The number of lives cut short by air pollution is already terrible and the potential rise in the next few decades is terrifying. If this is not motivation enough to act, this report shows there will also be a heavy economic cost to not taking action. We must prevent these projections from becoming reality.”

In 2010, air pollution was responsible for the premature deaths of 3 million people, and that number will only rise in the future, according to the report. The places most likely to be impacted include China, India, Central Asian countries, and Korea. The OECD report is only one of many reports warning of the dangers of air pollution.

The World Health Organization released a report last month that found that global urban air pollution levels had increased by 8 percent last year. Both the OECD and the World Health Organization reports found that one of the leading contributors to deadly air quality is traffic emissions.

Together, these reports paint a terrifying vision of the future unless action is taken now to reduce air pollution. So how can we improve our air quality now? The answer may be simpler than you think – by introducing cleaner-burning alternative fuels into our market, we can move towards a cleaner future. With such high stakes, it’s important that we act as soon as possible.

Learn how to join the movement for fuel-choice at our Take Action page.

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