Air pollution and climate change are reinforcing one another in a “vicious cycle” with devastating consequences for human health and ecosystems, a United Nations report has found, with nine million deaths each year linked to pollution-related diseases.

Climate change is worsening the effects of air pollution and waste generation, accelerating biodiversity loss, land degradation and desertification, found the Global Environment Outlook-7 (GEO-7), published on December 9, 2025 by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

The report warned that 99 per cent of the world’s population is exposed to some form of air pollution and more than 90 per cent of the nine million deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.

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