As air pollution threatens health and lives around the world, several creative solutions have the power to transform this situation. By tracking air quality, improving public transit, and using creative architecture and road use, countries from Estonia to Mexico to Bangladesh are finding solutions that work.

For many years, the city of Cairo has been dealing with dense smog, known as the "black cloud," that covers the city. This air pollution was initially set off by farmers burning surplus crops, but now is the cause of 42% of the nation's air pollution, according to the Egyptian Environment Ministry. Now, the government is taking action to fight against the smog with new programs and fees, aided by the inventions created by members of the Cairo community.

Air pollution is a huge problem for China, but surprisingly, the Air Quality Index in several cities is improving because of a variety of experimental projects that are being rolled out and a number of clever pollution solutions from around the country.

Spurred by growing health concerns related to air quality, companies and communities have turned attention to creating affordable, portable air-quality sensors. This new development allows citizens to monitor air quality as it directly relates to them, whether it be on a school-ground or even in their own backyard.

CityTree doesn't resemble the typical tree, but it provides the environmental benefit of 275: this structure, designed for urban landscaping by "Green City Solutions," filters air, cools the surrounding environment and removes CO2 and harmful air pollutants. As climate change worsens our air quality, these structures have proven to monitor and combat the air pollutants in cities all over the world.

The city of Louisville, built and sustained largely by pollution-inducing industries such as rubber factories and bourbon distilleries, is grappling with how to make the city air cleaner. The novel Air Louisville study integrated a partnership between a technology healthcare startup and a government-sponsored initiative that tracked incidence of asthma in different areas of the city. The results are already leading to healthier residents, but it is also just the starting point for long-term change.

Los Angeles has faced deepening issues of severe traffic and extreme smog pollution in the past several decades, but for years intentions and promises to broadly improve transportation have fallen flat. At long last, the most congested city in the world - once home to the most extensive urban rail network on the planet - is reviving rail lines and trains as a solution to both issues. Robust public transport has proven to have multi-layered economic, cultural, environmental, and social benefits to communities.

The breakdown of the ozone layer is one of the most well-known effects of climate change. Citizens enact different ways to protect the atmosphere from a build up of methane gas.

It's been proven within the cookstove industry that providing free cleaner-energy stoves to those cooking with traditional stoves or over open flame does not work as planned. Inyenyeri, a Rwandan cookstove company however, is adding a twist to that method by giving away their cookstoves that reduce emissions by 98 to 99 percent compared to wood or charcoal stoves for free, as long as the consumer agrees to buying their wood fuel pellets.

Respiratory diseases caused by air pollution now account for more premature deaths in people worldwide than malaria and HIV combined. To address increasing contamination levels, particularly in cities, scientists have developed a new kind of cement that absorbs pollutants like CO2. The special cement is being manufactured in Milan, and used around in the world in cities like Paris and Chicago.

Faced with poor air quality, the city of Oslo instituted a set of policy measures that have resulted in a dramatic improvement. Many of these policies center around transportation including incentivizing the production and purchase of electric cars, reducing the number of cars in the city, and creating car-free zones.