Nearly 2,000 children die every day from health problems linked to air pollution, which is now the second biggest risk factor for early death worldwide, a report said recently.
Exposure to air pollution contributed to the deaths of 8.1 million people -- around 12 percent of all fatalities -- in 2021, according to the report from the US-based Health Effects Institute.
This means air pollution has overtaken tobacco use and poor diet to become the second leading risk factor for early death, behind only high blood pressure, it said.
Little kids are particularly vulnerable to air pollution, and the institute partnered with the UN Children's Fund UNICEF for its annual State of Global Air report.
Air pollution contributed to the deaths of more than 700,000 children under the age of five, the report found.
More than 500,000 of those deaths were attributed to cooking indoors using dirty fuels such as coal, wood or dung, mostly in Africa and Asia.
