Prof David Phillips of King’s College London, a member of the working group, said there was no particular threshold at which pollution becomes dangerous. “The higher the pollution, the greater the cancer risk,” he explained. “It does not suddenly kick in at a particular level.”
The programme had previously classed a variety of individual chemicals and mixtures found in polluted air as carcinogens, such as diesel engine exhaust, solvents, metals, and dusts.
Dr Dana Loomis, deputy head of the IARC monographs section, explained: “Our task was to evaluate the air everyone breathes rather than focus on specific air pollutants.
“The results from the reviewed studies point in the same direction: the risk of developing lung cancer is significantly increased in people exposed to air pollution.”
Although the findings do not come as a surprise, they are likely to significantly increase the pressure on governments around the world to tackle pollution, which has risen rapidly around the world during industrialisation and was already known to raise the risk of conditions like heart and respiratory diseases.
Traffic, power stations, industrial and agricultural emissions, and cooking and heating in the home are the main causes of air pollution.
Dr Christopher Wild, director of the IARC, said: “Classifying outdoor air pollution as carcinogenic to humans is an important step. There are effective ways to reduce air pollution and, given the scale of the exposure affecting people worldwide, this report should send a strong signal to the international community to take action without further delay.”
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