Europe's Air: Better, but not enough

Europeans in general are breathing cleaner air than they were ten years ago, according to the European Environment Agency, but it's not clean enough yet by World Health Organization standards.

And it's not just because of the pandemic-caused shutdowns or limits, although those did contribute to a sharp drop this year in air pollution from transport.

Over the ten-year period, with more environmental regulations and practices in place, deaths due to primary pollutants have dropped by better than 9%, while those attributed specificallssy to nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) have dropped 54%, from 117,000 to 54,000.

Despite the improvements, the report says, 34% of urban residents are breathing more ozone than the target, and by WHO's more stringent standard, 99% are breathing too much ozone.