Air Pollution in Southeast Asia

Poor air quality is responsible for approximately 335,000 premature deathsPremature deaths in Southeast Asia each year, costing the region 6.75% of its GDP, according to estimates from the Health Effects Institute, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and the World Bank. The burden of health damage and monetary cost is not distributed evenly across the region due to differences in economic development and social inequality, as discussed in this chapter in conjunction with trends of population-weighted ambient concentrations of O3 and PM2.5 at the country scale, and PM2.5 and NO2 at the city scale, as well as trends of pollutants emission as compiled in the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR). Note that the estimates presented here are subject to uncertainty due to a lack of ground truth in many aspects, although they are likely the best source of information on the matter.