The third edition of the International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, which stresses the importance of clean air and the urgency to act to improve air quality and protect human health, will be commemorated on 7 September 2022. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 99 per cent of the world is now breathing polluted air. Air pollution is the greatest environmental threat to human health and causes 7 million premature deaths annually.
The theme for this year’s day is The Air We Share. It focuses on the transboundary nature of air pollution while stressing the need for collective accountability through global, regional and local cooperation.
“Air pollution knows no borders and impacts us all, with people living in low- and middle-income countries bearing most of the burden,” said Sheila Aggarwal-Khan, Director of the Economy Division at the United Nations Environment Programme’. “The only way to mitigate the health and economic impacts of this problem is through collective action, which includes stronger international cooperation; collecting and sharing data and research and raising public awareness.”