Nearly 92 percent of pollution-related deaths occur in low-income and middle-income countries. Children face the highest risks because small exposures to chemicals in utero and in early childhood can result in lifelong disease, disability, premature death, as well as reduced learning and earning potential.

Air pollution and climate change are closely linked and share common solutions. Fossil fuel combustion in higher-income countries and the burning of biomass in lower-income countries accounts for 85 percent of airborne particulate pollution.

The cost of inaction is high, while solutions yield enormous economic gains. Welfare losses due to pollution are estimated at $4.6 trillion per year — 6.2 percent of global economic output. In the United States, investment in pollution control has returned $200 billion each year since 1980 ($6 trillion total). The claim that pollution control stifles economic growth and that poor countries must pollute to grow is false.

Pollution