Status of air quality in Europe, 2022

Publication Created 22 Mar 2022 Published 01 Apr 2022

Air pollution is the single largest environmental health risk in Europe, causing cardiovascular and respiratory diseases that lead to the loss of healthy years of life and, in the most serious cases, to premature deaths. This briefing presents the status of concentrations of pollutants in ambient air in 2020 and 2021 by pollutant, in relation to both EU air quality standards and WHO guidelines. The assessment shows that exceedances of standards are common across the EU, with concentrations well above the latest WHO recommendations. Nevertheless, in 2020, lockdown measures adopted to minimize the spread of the COVID-19 impacted on emissions of air pollution from road transport and lead to improved air quality.

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