Urban air pollution is set to become the biggest environmental cause
of premature death in the coming decades, overtaking even such mass
killers as poor sanitation and a lack of clean drinking water, according
to a new report.
Both developed and developing countries will be hit, and by 2116,
there could be 3.6 million premature deaths a year from exposure to
particulate matter, most of them in China and India. But rich countries will suffer worse effects from exposure to ground-level ozone, because of their ageing populations – older people are more susceptible.
