Environmental risks killing 12.6 million people
Nearly one in four deaths are linked to unhealthy environments and are avoidable, a new World Health Organisation study – the first major assessment of environmental risk since 2006 – has shown.
It suggests environmental risks now contribute to more than 100 of the world’s most dangerous diseases, injuries, and kills 12.6 million people a year – nearly one in four or 23% of all deaths.
In case anyone is still burdened by out-of-date notions, environmental concerns are not the exclusive purview of the well off. It is the global poor who suffer and die most from pollution and other environmental insults.