Pollution from Egypt declined last year to 241.2 million MtC from 248.4 million MtC in 2018. The World Bank recently estimated the annual economic impact of air pollution on health in the Egyptian capital, Cairo at about 1.4% of the north African country’s GDP.

Algeria is in third place, with a nominal increase of air pollution of about 4.4% to 169.2 million MtC emitted in 2019. Nigeria and Morocco complete the top five biggest polluters from fossil combustion, oxidation and cement production in Africa with 136.8 million and 72 million MtC emitted in 2019 respectively.

In general African countries are still far behind their counterparts in advanced, industrialized economies around the world in terms of the worst polluters, but Africa is often cited as being most vulnerable to the impact of climate change such as rising temperatures.

These values and amounts of pollution do not include emissions from aviation and maritime transport. In addition to carbon taxes, some governments in Africa have started to act on vehicle emissions from old vehicles by cutting the age of pre-owned vehicles that can be imported from manufacturers such as those in Japan.

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