Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa have emerged Africa’s most polluted countries in terms of air pollution disease burden, amid health consequences and exacerbated impacts on climate change, a new report by Greenpeace Africa and Greenpeace Middle East & North Africa has revealed.

Titled: “Major Air Polluters in Africa Unmasked”, the report investigated the biggest human sources of air pollution across Africa, focusing on major industrial and economic sectors, including the fossil fuel industry.

It stated that every year in Africa, as many as 1.1 million premature deaths have been linked to air pollution.

The report added that Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa consistently exhibit large disease burdens, with the highest mortality linked to fossil fuel air pollution in these nations.

It highlighted the sparse monitoring of air quality in Africa, revealing that only 19 African countries have legislation incorporating ambient air quality standards, according to the First Global Assessment of Air Pollution Legislation by the United Nations Environmental Programme.

Nigeria’s energy sector and its oil and gas industry are responsible for large amounts of flaring, it said, is the result of development practices in the 1960s and 1970s when there was limited demand for fossil gas and environmental standards were not stringent.

With no market for the gas produced as a by-product of oil wells, flares were installed as a disposal Nigeria features method. Decades later, it added that Nigeria is in the top 10 and continues to flare large volumes of fossil gas, quoting previous reports.