Cleaner air is now preventing an estimated 323,000 deaths every year

Here is progress you can breathe. The latest Lancet Countdown report, produced with the World Health Organization and led by University College London, estimates that cleaner air is preventing around 323,000 premature deaths a year across 70 countries where fossil-fuel air pollution has fallen since 2016. The same report counts a record $2.1 trillion invested globally in clean energy last year, clean energy jobs growing 2.3% in 2024 to almost twice direct fossil-fuel employment, and national climate-and-health laws rising roughly 50-fold since 2000. Around one in four countries now has a national plan for adapting health services to a changing climate, up from just 14 in 2015. The energy shift is usually told in megawatts; this is what it looks like in lives.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: market force