Fossil fuel burning poses threat to health of 1.6bn people, data shows | Air pollution

The combustion of fossil fuels does not only damage the global climate; It also threatens the health of at least 1.6 billion people thanks to the toxic pollutants it produces, according to data.

Carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gases for fossil fuel combustion, does not directly damage health, but causes global heating. However, the combustion of coal and oil for electricity production and the combustion of fossil fuels in industrial installations pollute the air with particles called PM2.5, which have serious health impacts when inspired.

A new interactive climate trap card, a coalition of academics and analysts who follow pollution and greenhouse gases, shows that PM2.5 and other toxins are paid in the air near houses of around 1.6 billion people. Among these, around 900 million are in terms of “super -emotional” industrial installations – including power plants, refineries, ports and mines – which provide disproportionate doses of toxic air.

The organization has highlighted 10 urban areas particularly poorly affected by super-emoters, including Karachi in Pakistan; Guangzhou in China; Seoul in South Korea; And New York in the United States, where leaders around the world meet this week for the United Nations General Assembly.

In the United States, the amount of alarm on air pollution is considered to be a means of countering Donald Trump measures to dismantle the work of the federal government aimed at combating the climate crisis. The American president closed federal climate programs, ordered the end of renewable energy projects and published a climate report that scientists called a “mockery”.

During the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, he denounced climate science as a “stupid work”. His words were quickly refuted by scientists.

But Trump’s government claims to be willing to consider certain forms of pollution. His environmental advisor Ed Russo gave an address to the climate week organized by Brazil last month in Rio de Janeiro, in front of the Brazil presidency of the COP30 climate summit in November. Russo has referred with approval to the fight against pollution of waste discharges, discharges and other sources. “The impacts of pollution are the critical problem of all of this,” he said in a video message. “We have to clean the damage we have done and stop pollution at its source.”

However, he did not say how the Trump administration would seek to clean toxins, and environmental groups are concerned with the apparent stripping of protections for drinking water and air in the middle of the restructuring and rollbacks of the main regulatory body, the American environmental protection agency.

Al Gore, a former American vice-president and co-founder of Climate Trace, said that there was a clear link between human health and the combustion of fossil fuels. “The installations that burn fossil fuels are the extremely dominant source of Pilation pollution that leads to the climate crisis – using the sky as if it were an open sewer. The atmospheric pollution of the particles that they also create falls into the wind in the surrounding districts and causes the death of 8.7 million people per year, “he said. “Now that we can clearly see how and where people are exposed to this harmful pollution, our leaders must do something to reduce it.”

The Climate Trace tool, which is made public, will allow people to see plumes of air pollution, detected and followed by satellites and sensors, which flow in the air in more than 2,500 urban areas. “The new tool shows in striking details the direct link between the climate crisis and air pollution which is an important threat to public health,” said the organization. “Identify and show which communities are the most at risk is an urgent priority.”