Govind Tekale
Climate change is making wildfires more frequent and intense, leading to dangerous air pollution that can travel across continents, according to a new United Nations report.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released its fifth annual Air Quality and Climate Bulletin on September 5, highlighting how wildfires in 2024 significantly worsened air quality in multiple regions around the world.
“Climate impacts and air pollution respect no national borders,” said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett. “Intense heat and drought fuel wildfires, worsening air quality for millions of people.”
The report shows that wildfires in 2024 caused above-average levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in Canada, Siberia, and central Africa. However, the Amazon basin experienced the largest surge in these harmful particles due to record wildfires in the western Amazon and drought-fueled fires in northern South America.
PM2.5 particles are especially dangerous because they are small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, contributing to respiratory and cardiovascular problems. Health experts at the World Health Organization calculate that exposure to polluted air leads to roughly 4.5 million early deaths globally every year.
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“What we have from these fires is essentially a witches’ brew of components that pollute the air,” explained Lorenzo Labrador, WMO Scientific Officer who coordinated the bulletin.
The report highlights how air pollution can travel far beyond where fires occur.
“The wildfire season has the tendency to be stronger and longer every year as a result of climate change,” Labrador noted.
This transboundary smoke problem continues in 2025, with record wildfires across southern Europe’s Iberian Peninsula contributing to pollution episodes throughout the continent this summer.
The bulletin points to concerning air quality situations in northern India’s regions, particularly in heavily populated areas. The Indo-Gangetic Plain, home to over 900 million people, has seen increasing air pollution and winter fog episodes. These are growing in frequency and duration due to pollution, particularly from agricultural biomass burning.
“Persistence of fog is no longer a simple, seasonal weather event – it is a symptom of escalating human impact on the environment,” the bulletin states.
Despite these concerning trends, the report does highlight some success stories. Ongoing environmental protection measures in eastern China have successfully reduced the concentration of harmful PM2.5 particles throughout 2024.
“Over a 10-year period, Chinese cities have improved their air quality in a dramatic way. It’s really impressive what they have done,” said Paolo Laj, WMO’s global atmosphere chief.
Laj emphasized that when countries take measures to combat poor air quality, improvements become clearly visible in the data. “Look at Europe, Shanghai, Beijing, cities in the United States: Many cities have taken measures and you see in the long term a strong decrease in recorded air pollution,” he said.
However, the bulletin notes that despite reductions in major pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides due to emission controls, ground-level ozone levels – a main ingredient in smog – have not declined. This is partly because global warming accelerates the chemical reactions that form ozone, maintaining public health risks even where PM2.5 trends improve.
In its recommendations, the WMO emphasized the need for enhanced tracking systems and stronger policy frameworks to protect both human wellbeing and ecosystem health. The bulletin emphasizes that climate change and air quality are interconnected issues that must be addressed together.
“Climate change and air quality cannot be addressed in isolation. They go hand-in-hand and must be tackled together in order to protect the health of our planet, our communities and our economies,” Barrett said.
The WMO bulletin underscores the urgent need for integrated approaches to both climate action and air quality improvement, as wildfires become a growing threat to global public health.
