Despite improvements in air quality over the last two decades, Europeans today are breathing starkly different air. The western portion of the continent experiences generally cleaner air compared to the eastern part, where virtually all of the populations of Poland, Belarus, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Armenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina do not meet the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guideline for particulate pollution (PM2.5). If particulate pollution was reduced to meet the WHO guideline, 61.3 million total years of life expectancy would be gained.

The differences are even more poignant when comparing neighbors. For example, Germans are losing just 3.6 months off their lives while neighboring Poles are losing 10.8 months due to the higher level of PM2.5. Residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina are breathing air that is more polluted than Southeast Asian hotspots like Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia than to nearby Austria where there is less than half as much pollution. If pollution were improved to meet the WHO guideline, an average resident of Bosnia and Herzegovina would gain 1.9 years of life expectancy. Unlike in Southeast Asia where a portion of the pollution stems from wildfires, the pollution in eastern Europe is almost entirely due to the burning of fossil fuels.

Along with the burning of fossil fuels, many of these eastern European countries are not part of the European Union, where there are more stringent policies. An average resident in a non-EU country stands to lose 3 more months of life expectancy because of the air they breathe compared to a resident of an EU country, relative to if the WHO guideline was met. And, of those eastern European countries that are part of the EU, many are not meeting the stricter 2030 PM2.5 limit the EU adopted in April 2024, including Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. If these countries, along with Italy in the West, were to meet the EU’s 2030 limit for PM2.5, it would add 56.4 million life years to the EU’s total life expectancy.