Air pollution: Nearly everyone in Europe breathing bad air

By Rodrigo Menegat Schuinski

With the EU voting on new air quality rules, satellite data shows that 98% of people face pollution above limits recommended by the World Health Organization.

Urban areas such as here in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, but also in Paris or Barcelona, are particularly affected

Virtually everyone in Europe lives in polluted towns and cities where annual average levels of fine particulate matter are higher than the World Health Organization's  (WHO) recommended limit.

In practical terms, this means that almost everyone on the continent is breathing bad air   that has been shown to be fatal.

Air pollution increases the risk of respiratory and heart disease and lowers life expectancy.

"With the current levels of air pollution, many people [are getting] sick. We know that lowering air pollution levels reduces these numbers," said Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, director of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).

DW partnered with the European Data Journalism Network to analyze satellite data from the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS).

We found that in 2022, almost everyone in Europe — 98% of people — lived in areas where the concentration of fine particulate matter, commonly abbreviated as PM 2.5, was over the limit set by the WHO.

The WHO recommends that the annual average concentration of fine particulate pollution should not exceed five micrograms per cubic meter of air. A microgram is a thousand times less than a milligram.

Pollution levels differ from region to region in Europe. It can be especially severe in   parts of Central Europe, the Po valley in Italy and in larger metropolitan areas, such as Athens, Barcelona and Paris.

Our analysis shows that the most polluted regions in Europe reach annual average PM 2.5 concentrations of about 25 micrograms per cubic meter.

High air pollution levels for individual European cities have been reported before, but this new data analysis offers a first Europe-wide comparison of pollution in different regions. We show where air quality has improved and where it's gotten worse.

We also used the data to identify two places with similar problems but a different outlook. In northern Italy, pollution levels are high and seem to remain so. In southern Poland, they are also high yet appear to be falling. We looked at how mitigation strategies are helping or not.

Fine particulate matter is a combination of very small solid and liquid particles of different materials and pollutants.

The pollutants are invisible to the naked eye. They have a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers, or around 30 times thinner than a single strand of hair.

Even though there are many other pollutants that affect human health, it's common to focus on these kinds of particles as there is consistent scientific evidence of their negative effect on public health.

European air quality is generally better than in other regions of the world.

In northern Indian cities, such as New Delhi, Varanasi and Agra, for example, average PM 2.5 values can get as high as 100 micrograms per cubic meter. In Europe, our data shows pollution levels of up to 25 micrograms per cubic meter.

But even at Europe's comparatively lower levels, pollution can have a significant impact on people's health.

Europe's new air quality rules would allow an annual average concentration of 10 micrograms of fine particulate matter per cubic meter of air.

The European Parliament's Environment Committee had suggested adopting the WHO recommendations, which are stricter at five micrograms of fine particulate matter per cubic meter of air.

But even at 10 micrograms, it would be stricter than the current standards, which allow annual PM 2.5 concentrations at 20 micrograms per cubic meter — four times higher than the current WHO recommendation.

Health researchers and environmentalists argue that the new European air quality rules should mirror the WHO's guidelines but acknowledge that that would be a challenge. 

"EU limits are not only [about] health, they're also about economic arguments, [whereas] the WHO limits are made by experts that only take health into account," said Nieuwenhuijsen. "I hope they'll go with the WHO, but probably some will argue that it would be too expensive."