Earth Today | Racing for air
International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies encourages course correction on air pollution
Published:Thursday | August 28, 2025 | 12:09 AM
WITH AIR pollution the cause of a reported seven million premature deaths globally each year, governments, corporations and civil society actors are being called upon to join the race for solutions.
That is the focus of this year’s International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies, celebrated annually on September 7, and this year under the theme ‘Racing for Air: Every Breath Matters’.
The prioritisation of improved air quality is punctuated by data from the 2024 State of Global Air report, which reveals that in 2021, air pollution was second only to high blood pressure as a global risk factor for death.
According to the report – a collaboration of the Health Effects Institute and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation’s Global Burden of Disease project – also in 2021, air pollution was responsible for 48 per cent of deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 30 per cent of deaths from lower respiratory infections and 28 per cent of deaths from ischemic heart disease.
The situation, according to information from cleanairblueskies.org, is urgent.
“What we inhale 12 times a minute, it keeps us alive or poisons us. 99 per cent of us breathe polluted air. We can’t take it anymore. Air pollution is the biggest environmental health risk of our time. It also exacerbates climate change, causes economic losses, and reduces agricultural productivity,” reads a section of the site.
“It knows no borders – everyone has a responsibility to protect our atmosphere and ensure healthy air for all. By collaborating across borders, sectors, and silos, we can reduce air pollution through collective investments of time, resources, and efforts,” it insisted.
International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies is the result of a December 2019 UN General Assembly Resolution, which also invited the United Nations Environment Programme to facilitate the observance “in collaboration with other relevant organisations”.
The resolution noted “the need to substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination by 2030, as well as to reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management by 2030”.
This is while “recognising that clean air is important for the health and day-to-day lives of people, mindful that air pollution is the single greatest environmental risk to human health and one of the main avoidable causes of death and disease globally”.