Air pollution is a fixable problem – just look at how London and New York have cleaned up their acts | Sadiq Khan and Michael Bloomberg

S ome public health threats make global headlines: Covid-19. Ebola. Famine. When these disasters hit, photographs and videos of people suffering and dying spur countries to respond, international bodies to cooperate and individuals to donate supplies and money. Yet one of the world’s deadliest threats gets almost no attention at all, because it is largely invisible to the public and mostly absent from media coverage: air pollution. Every day, billions of people are inhaling air that is shortening their lives and making them sicker with every breath. Every year, air pollution kills more than 8 million people worldwide . That’s more deaths than HIV, malaria and tuberculosis combined . It hides in plain sight and strikes without mercy, leading to heart and lung disease, cancers and other deadly conditions. The heaviest burden falls on low- and middle-income communities and nations, but it is a problem that stretches across all classes and countries. The good news is this is a fixable problem – and the public doesn’t need to wait for national governments to act. Cities can implement their own solutions – and as the world convenes in London for Climate Action Week , the success that the English capital and New York have had in reducing pollution can help overcome opposition to bold climate action. Experts at King’s College London predicted that from 2016 it would take almost 200 years for London to meet legal limits for roadside nitrogen dioxide (NO2) without action. …