UNICEF: 300 million children worldwide breathe toxic air

Nearly 1 child in 7 worldwide — or 300 million kids — lives in an area that has high levels of outdoor air pollution, a UNICEF report released Monday says.

Most of the affected children — 220 million — live in South Asia. Sources of pollution include factories, power plants, burning waste, dust, and vehicles that use fossil fuels, which "don't only harm children's developing lungs, they can actually cross the blood-brain barrier and permanently damage their developing brains," UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake said in a statement. Lake said that every year, air pollution is a "major contributing factor in the deaths of around 600,000 children under 5."

The World Health Organization estimates that outdoor air pollution killed 3.7 million people worldwide in 2012, including 127,000 kids under 5. Indoor air pollution, usually caused by coal or wood-burning cooking stoves in developing nations, killed 4.3 million people in 2012, including 531,000 children under 5. Next week in Morocco, the U.N. will lead talks among 200 governments on global warming, and UNICEF wants a discussion started on restricting the use of fossil fuels to not only improve health but to also halt climate change, Reuters reports.

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