Pollution from increasingly intense wildfires and heat waves could undermine global efforts to improve air quality and protect human health, the United Nations' weather agency said on Monday, warning that climate change is making it harder to meet international air quality goals.
In its annual report on air quality and the climate, the World Meteorological Organization said air pollution and climate change are closely linked and should be tackled through coordinated policies rather than in isolation.
It warned that meeting the World Health Organization's air quality guidelines will become more difficult because extreme wildfires are more likely to occur in the future.
Wildfires are becoming a growing source of harmful air pollution even as regulations have reduced emissions from industry and transport in many developed countries, the WMO said in its report.
"No matter how clean your city or your region is ... if you have a lot of pollution brought about by wildfires, that has the potential to negatively impact air quality in those regions as well," Lorenzo Labrador, scientific officer at the WMO, told Reuters.
