AIR POLLUTION AND LIFE EXPECTANCY
According to Dr. Hasenkopf, “air waste is frequently cited in terms of the number of people it kills.” Millions of people are born every year around the world, but that number is so huge and challenging to link to one’s life.
The Air Quality Life Index, based on her study, incorporated air pollution into its impact on human life duration.
According to the index, people are losing as much as 3.2 years of life on average in China’s most poisoned place of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei.
” That’s not just necessarily at the end of a long life”, Dr Hasenkopf pointed out.  ,
The number also factors in life that are cut small, “like children or infants who are even more seriously affected by air pollutants than, say, child populations”, she said.  ,
NEW ACTION Program
In December next month, China released a new air quality action plan to cut PM2.5 levels by 10 per share next year, compared with 2020.
The plan also includes lowering nitrogen oxide emissions and volatile organic compounds by 10 % and reducing the annual percentage of heavily polluted days to 1 % or less.
By 2025, China wants non-fossil power to accounts for at least 20 % of its total energy intake. It is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2060.
Although China has made amazing progress, according to experts, new goals are getting harder to hit.
” There’s also a long way to go”, said Professor Huang Yanzhong, senior fellow for global wellbeing at American think tank Council on Foreign Relations.
” But improving air quality, because the low hanging fruit is no longer there, will be a more uphill battle” . ,