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Air pollution still leads to around 400,000 premature deaths
By EUobserver
The European Environment Agency said on Wednesday that 399,000 EU citizens died prematurely in 2014 because of too high levels of particulate matter (PM2.5). That is lower than the 436,000 figure in 2013. Premature deaths linked to the ozone also went down from 16,000 to 13,600, but nitrogen dioxide-related premature deaths increased from 68,000 to 75,000 in the EU. The figures for the three pollutants may include double counting.