Global warming gases in the air cost the Israeli economy NIS 34 billion ($11.3 billion at today’s rates) in 2025 and are still thought to cause 5,500 premature deaths in Israel annually, the Environmental Protection Ministry found in a report published Tuesday.

Still, that sum was down NIS 4.2 billion ($1.4 billion) from the previous year, according to an annual report, also published in English.

Costs include lost workdays due to pollution-related sickness caused by transportation fumes, electricity generation, waste, industry, and large-scale livestock farming.

The data comes from two annual reports.

One includes information on emissions of 16 pollutants into the air, soil and water submitted by the 570 largest factories in fields such as energy, chemicals, waste and sewage, and livestock. The other, the National Air Emissions Inventory, focuses on air pollution. It combines the factories’ information with data from multiple other sources to create models.

Much of the good news from 2025 is explained by lower coal use, which has been on a downward trajectory for years. Coal has been replaced by natural gas, a fossil fuel that is less polluting than coal or diesel, but still releases methane, a powerful global warming gas. Another positive is the drop in wildfires during 2025, following the end of rocket fire from Lebanon.

For these reasons, nitrogen oxides dipped by 28 percent between 2024 and 2025, and sulfur oxides by a massive 49%. Particulate matter, an invisible pollutant made of tiny particles of soot, dirt, carbon and minerals, also fell by over 20%.

Materials known or suspected to be carcinogenic to humans were down by 7% thanks to reduced burning of municipal waste. However, that followed a 16% rise between 2023 and 2024 and a 3% rise between 2022 and 2023.

For a longer-term view, the ministry also compared changes between 2012 and 2025. Again, thanks to a reduction in coal, nitrogen oxides decreased by 82%, sulfur oxides by 94%, particulate matter by 78%, and materials suspected or known to be carcinogenic by 36%.

The only reported rise in emissions last year was from Non-Methane Volatile Organic Compounds (NMVOC), which were up by two percent. That was after a 16% rise in 2024.........

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