BRUSSELS. Also in 2019 Italy is confirmed among the EU countries where the health risks are highest, in terms of deaths and years of life lost, due to exposure to smog. According to the 2021 Air Quality Report of the European Environment Agency (Aea), in 2019 our country was the first for the number of deaths from nitrogen dioxide (NO2, 10,640 deaths, + 2% compared to the data of the Report Aea 2020), and is the second after Germany for the risks from fine particulate matter PM2.5 (49,900 deaths, -4%) and ozone (O3, 3,170 deaths, + 5% on 2018).
In the EU27, around 307,000 people died prematurely from exposure to PM2.5 in 2019, 40,400 from NO2 and 16,800 from acute ozone exposure. Deaths from smog decreased by 16% compared to 2018 and by 33% with reference to 2005. At least 58% of deaths from PM2.5 in the EU, warns the AEA, could have been avoided if all Member States had reached the new WHO parameter for PM2.5 of 5 µg / m3. With the WHO parameters, Italy would have 32,200 fewer deaths (-32,200) from PM2.5.
Italy, which has just 33.8 square meters of urban green space per inhabitant, a situation that pushes to focus on a large urban redevelopment plan for parks and gardens that improves the quality of the air and life of the population, giving a boost to the economy and employment. Coldiretti notes this on Istat data, in reference precisely to the latest 2021 Report on air quality in Europe. Air pollution is considered by 47% of Italians to be the first environmental emergency, according to the Coldiretti / Ixè survey, hence the need to intervene in a structural way, favoring the spread of public and private green areas with the most suitable essences for climatic and environmental conditions of the individual territories. The goal is to create real smog-eating oases in cities by choosing the most effective trees in capturing greenhouse gases and blocking fine dust.
Indeed, the combined effect of climate change, traffic and the reduced availability of green spaces causes smog in cities, reports Coldiretti. A situation that worsens in metropolises where the values range from 15.2 square meters in Messina to 17.1 in Rome, from 17.8 in Milan to 22.2 in Florence, from 42.4 in Venice to 9.2 in Bari In this, Coldiretti underlines, thanks to the extension of the green bonus provided for by the budget, within the next three years there will be over 300,000 new trees, almost 8 million additional square meters of parks and gardens, 16,000 new terraces and flowered balconies; an action that places Italy at the forefront in the fight against smog and climate change.