Where does air pollution come from?

Air pollution kills millions every year — where does it come from? A breakdown of the sources of many air pollutants that damage our health and ecosystems. Millions of people die prematurely from air pollution every year. This problem has existed since humans started burning materials for fuel — first wood and biomass, then fossil fuels. But it’s an environmental and public health problem that we can make progress on. We know this because the world has already been successful in reducing air pollutants, and many countries that used to be highly polluted now have much cleaner air than they used to. To tackle air pollution effectively — to focus our efforts on the interventions that will have the biggest impact — we need to understand where it’s coming from. That’s why we wrote this article.1 A note on data and definitions The main data source we rely on is the Community Emissions Data System (CEDS). There are a couple of reasons why we think it’s an incredibly valuable resource: It ... Read full article.