Each year in Europe, hundreds of thousands of people are silently murdered by air pollution. It is unseen, ubiquitous, and insidious. In 2022, Italy had the unfortunate distinction of having suffered nearly 49,000 premature deaths due to PM2.5 fine particulate matter—the most dangerous kind, which is able to reach deep within the lungs, seep into the bloodstream, and therefore impact the heart, brain, and respiratory system.
These facts are included in the most recent report released by the European Environment Agency (EEA), under the following attention-grabbing title: “Harm to human health from air pollution in Europe: burden of disease status 2024.” The air we breathe remains the single most important danger to public health, ahead of other more conspicuous or publicity-hungry risks. About 240,000 lives are lost every year in Europe.
Numbers that leave no room for doubt
Italy surpasses the likes of Poland, with 34,700 fatalities, and Germany, with 32,600. A record that gives no pride, nevertheless. It is even worse when we widen our scope: tropospheric ozone (O₃) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) accounted for 70,000 and 48,000 fatalities respectively in Europe.
The World Health Organisation recommends that the threshold of PM2.5 should be 5 µg/m³. It remains a dream to the majority of Italian cities, where traffic, domestic heating and intensive farming continue to emit day and night.
Gradual Decreases, Remote Aspirations
There has been notable progress: relative to 2005, PM2.5 fatalities are down by 45%. But the target of a 55% cut by 2030, established in the European climate neutrality strategy, appears a distant horizon at present. A new air quality directive was agreed in October 2023, with the aim of aligning European limits more closely with those recommended by the WHO. But the reality is this: pollution is still the largest environmental health hazard in Europe.
Italy is also suffering the impact on the agricultural side. In the year 2022, ozone at ground level, with concentrations above safety thresholds, caused estimated losses of:
5.98% in wheat yield (worth £36 million)
4.47% in potatoes (a further £13 million lost)
Approximately one-third of European agricultural land has passed critical thresholds, leading to decreased productivity and profitability for tens of thousands of farmers. This is a concealed cost that contributes to the health burden alone.
Nature in Crisis: Forests and Biodiversity Suffer
Ecosystems, too, inhale the air we taint with our pollution. As revealed in another EEA briefing, a staggering 73% of European ecosystems have been subjected to excessive levels of atmospheric nitrogen eutrophication—a process that disrupts the balance of plant species, alters soil composition, and hastens the loss of biodiversity.
Forests are doing no better: over 60% of forest lands have exceeded critical thresholds for ozone exposure, with signs of effects on plant growth and overall green health.
A system emergency—avoidable one at that
The European Agency is explicit: much of the environmental and health damage can be prevented if only member states would abide by WHO parameters. And Italy? For Istat, 15 times as many people are killed by pollution as by road accidents, and yet collective and political awareness remains low. The principal culprits have been known for some time: transport, home boilers, and intensive agriculture. Each presents an opportunity for ambitious action, with the potential for rapid benefit both in health and economic terms. No, we continue with our poor breathing, and we die in silence.