According to the European Environment Agency, pollutants in the air represent the greatest environmental risk. They lead to the premature death of more than 1,200 young people every year.
According to one estimate, the high level of air pollution with pollutants such as particulate matter leads to the premature death of more than 1,200 children and young people in Europe every year. It also significantly increases the risk of disease in adolescents later in life, according to reports released on Monday by the European Environment Agency (EEA). According to experts, air pollution leads to more dangerous asthma attacks, among other things.
More needs to be done to protect children’s health from the negative effects of air pollution, said the Copenhagen-based EU agency. Despite improvements in recent years, exposure to various pollutants remains stubbornly above the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended limits in many countries, particularly in Central Eastern Europe and Italy. The main reason for the fine dust pollution there is the burning of solid fuels such as coal for heating and in industry.
Long way to really clean air
In addition to the values for particulate matter, those for ozone and nitrogen dioxide are still too high, according to the environmental agency. Children and young people are particularly vulnerable because their organs and immune system are still developing. All Europeans must be protected from bad air – but above all the children, demanded EEA Executive Director Hans Bruyninckx. Measures at EU, national and local level urgently need to be further strengthened “to protect our children who cannot protect themselves”. There is still a long way to go to really clean air.
According to EEA estimates, air pollution currently causes more than 1,200 premature deaths among minors in the 32 member states – including the 27 EU countries, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Turkey. Although the numbers in this age group are relatively low compared to the general population, early life deaths represent lost future potential.
Several countries, including the UK and Ukraine, did not participate in the EEA study. The Europe-wide balance could therefore be even worse.
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“We cannot look at children like small adults when it comes to environmental risks and air pollution,” said EEA expert Gerardo Sanchez. Among other things, they would have a higher breathing rate, breathe more through the mouth, be closer to the ground and weigh less. Their biology is different, but so is the way they are exposed to air pollution. This could have potentially very serious health consequences, including decreased lung function, asthma and allergies.
Green spaces can improve air quality
To better protect children, the most important thing is to reduce air pollution at the source – that is, in traffic, industry and heating, Sanchez said. A good measure is also to focus on improving the air quality around schools and kindergartens, for example through more green spaces.
The EEA usually publishes a new estimate of the total number of premature deaths caused by air pollution each autumn. Most recently, looking at the figures for 2020, there were almost 240,000 in the EU due to fine dust alone. According to the WHO, around seven million people worldwide die prematurely every year as a result of air pollution.
Problems with excessively high pollutant levels are often found in cities in particular. In the analyzed year 2021, more than 90 percent of the urban population in the EU countries had to live with levels of fine dust (PM2.5), ozone (O3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) that were above the WHO recommendations. Particulate matter in the size category PM2.5 (diameter less than 2.5 microns) is considered harmful and causes strokes, cancer and respiratory diseases. The WHO guideline values are much stricter than the EU limit values.
Faro, Umeå and Uppsala as role models
In some places in the far south and north of the continent there are also rays of hope: the cities with the cleanest air in Europe, measured in terms of particulate matter pollution, are Faro in Portugal and Umeå and Uppsala in Sweden, as can be seen from the most recent comparative values of 375 European cities. It is followed by Funchal (Portugal), Tallinn (Estonia), Tampere (Finland) and Reykjavik (Iceland). Kiel (rank 19), Göttingen (22) and Lübeck (26) achieve the best values among the German cities, while Nuremberg (234), Berlin (238) and Gelsenkirchen (245) have the worst values. Munich is 54th, Hamburg 161st.
In general, the environmental experts classify Germany differently depending on the pollutant: When it comes to particulate matter, the Federal Republic is in the upper midfield of the countries analyzed, but when it comes to nitrogen dioxide, which mainly comes from road traffic, it comes off worst due to the high volume of traffic.
