Presently, 3 million people die because of air pollution across the globe. According to a study, air pollution could kill 6.6 million people every year by 2050 if no action is taken to improve the air quality.

At present, over 3 million people die worldwide due to a lot of exposure to air pollution, which means in next 35 years deaths could double from air pollution and air pollution is likely to emerge as one of the major causes of premature deaths.

Lead author of the study, Jos Lelieveld, professor at Max Planck Institute, said, "The total number of deaths due to HIV and malaria is 2.8 million per year. That's a half a million less than the number of people who die from air pollution globally".

Air pollution is affecting mainly Asia with China and India having the most number of the premature deaths because of the ozone and toxic particles produced by air pollution which are leading to heart problem, respiratory disease and lung cancer.

Air pollution is considered to be the main cause by automobiles and industries but contrary to this popular belief, the residential energy emissions, including fuels used from cooking and heating, have the biggest impact on air quality globally.

Lelieveld said that when most people think about outdoor air pollution, they consider that traffic and industry have the largest impact on global premature morality, and not residential energy emissions and agriculture.

The second leading cause to the premature deaths from air pollution is agriculture, and has the biggest impact on Eastern United States, Europe, Russia, Turkey, Korea and Japan.