Accelerating Access to Clean Air for a Livable Planet

This report assesses directions for future policy interventions that could deliver within the next 15 years, substantial air quality improvements in low- and middle-income regions. Priorities are derived from a cost-effectiveness analysis of the available options to achieve, in each region, an illustrative target for population exposure in 2040. To this end, the 2040 Clean Air Targets call for halving the number of people facing excess of the PM2.5 Interim Target 2 of the WHO (25 µg/ m³) in each region, instead of the 24 percent global growth in the Stated Policies scenario. The full application of all policies and measures that are included in this analysis could reduce global population-weighted exposure by about two thirds in 2040. Specific provisions are made for regions in which desert dust account for a high share of total exposure