The continuing implementation of environmental and climate policies across Europe is a key factor behind the improvements. For nitrogen dioxide, the reduction is even greater as premature deaths have declined by about 54 % over the last decade. Thanks to better air quality, around 60,000 fewer people died prematurely due to fine particulate matter pollution in 2018, compared with 2009. Pollutant emissions from energy supply have also seen major reductions while progress in reducing emissions from buildings and agriculture has been slow. Since 2000, emissions of key air pollutants, including nitrogen oxides (NOx), from transport have declined significantly, despite growing mobility demand and associated increase in the sector's greenhouse gas emissions. (The three figures are separate estimates and the numbers should not be added together to avoid double counting.)ĮU, national and local policies and emission cuts in key sectors have improved air quality across Europe, the EEA report shows. About 379,000 of those deaths occurred in EU-28 where 54,000 and 19,000 premature deaths were attributed to nitrogen dioxide (NO 2) and ground-level ozone (O 3), respectively. The new EEA analysis is based on the latest official air quality data from more than 4 000 monitoring stations across Europe in 2018.Įxposure to fine particulate matter caused about 417,000 premature deaths in 41 European countries in 2018, according to the EEA assessment. The EEA report notes that there remains a gap between EU's legal air quality limits and WHO guidelines, an issue that the European Commission seeks to address with a revision of the EU standards under the Zero Pollution Action Plan. Only four countries in Europe - Estonia, Finland, Iceland and Ireland - had fine particulate matter concentrations that were below the World Health Organization's (WHO) stricter guideline values. The EEA’s ‘ Air quality in Europe - 2020 report’ shows that six Member States exceeded the European Union's limit value for fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) in 2018: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Italy, Poland, and Romania.
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