Climate TRACE has released a tool that makes the threat of harmful particulate matter (PM2.5) visible to all. The tool shows the flow of air pollution plumes out of sources that contribute to the climate crisis and into the air that 1.6bn people in more than 2,500 urban areas breathe.

The new tool demonstrates the direct connection between the climate crisis and air pollution that threatens public health. With nearly 9m deaths scientifically attributed to PM2.5 pollution around the world each year, identifying and showing which communities are most at risk is a priority.

The tool harnesses data from Climate TRACE’s global inventory of more than 660m sources of greenhouse gas emissions, which includes facility-level data on eight air pollutants that are of high concern for human health. Climate TRACE’s inventory now represents a nearly complete global inventory of anthropogenic air pollution.