As countries become richer, air pollution-related deaths reduce. This is the general trend for most nations except India and China, a report released by Greenpeace has found. The study, which assesses the GDP per capita versus deaths resulting from toxic air, revealed India and China had higher death rates than what is expected of countries with similar per capita GDP.The report states that air pollution may have caused 1.6 million additional deaths than a projected death number based on GDP growth rate for 2015 in India and China collectively. The report sources the number of such deaths from the Global Burden of Disease report and GDP per capita estimations for all countries from a recent World Bank document."Usually, air pollution has an inverse relationship with the GDP. As countries become richer, they generally develop less polluting industries. But in India and China, the trend has been quite the opposite. An economy heavily reliant on coal can only spell doom for its people," said Lauri Myllyvirta of Greenpeace East Asia.Although air pollution death rates have fallen in China and India since 1990, they are still worse than most similar countries. In India, rates have not improved since 2010. In 2015, pollution claimed 138 and 115 lives per 1 lakh people in India and China, respectively.According to its GDP per capita, the expected death rate in India is 94 per lakh but its death rate remains 138. "So, unlike China, it hasn't yet reached an income level where its air pollution death rate could be expected to be similar to that in rich nations. But in both cases, there is potential for significant improvements in air pollution death rates," said Sunil Dahiya of Greenpeace India.