Air pollution may claim 36 000 lives a year in UK

Air pollution causes 28 000 to 36 000 deaths a year in the UK, estimates from the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants have shown.1

The committee’s previous estimate, made in 2015, was an annual effect equivalent to nearly 29 000 deaths a year. The new figure was arrived at by combining the effects seen in studies of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂₎ and fine particulate matter (PM_2.5). The committee found it difficult to separate the effects of particulate air pollution from that of NO₂ because of scientific uncertainty.

In May the European Commission announced that it was taking the UK, along with France and Germany, to the European Court of Justice for failing to meet EU …