Bengaluru, India (AP) — Most of the world has dirty air, with just 17% of cities across the world meeting air pollution guidelines discovered on Tuesday.
Switzerland-based air quality monitoring database IQAIR has analyzed data from 40,000 air quality monitoring stations in 138 countries and found that Chad, Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India have the most dirty air. India had six of the nine most polluted cities, with the worst industrial city of Birnihat in northeastern India.
Experts said the real amount of air pollution could be much larger as many parts of the world lack the surveillance required for more accurate data. For example, in Africa, there is only one monitoring station for every 3.7 million people.
More air quality monitors have been set up to combat this issue, the report says. This year, the authors of the report were able to incorporate data from 8,954 new locations and around 1,000 new monitors as a result of their efforts to better monitor air pollution.
However, air pollution data surveillance was hit last week when the US State Department announced it would not release data from embassies and consulates around the world.
Respirating contaminated air for long periods of time can cause respiratory illness, said Fatima Ahmad, chief scientist and air pollution expert at the Malaysia-based Planetary Safeguard Center. The World Health Organization estimates that air pollution kills around 7 million people each year.
Ahmad said more needs to be done to reduce air pollution levels. The WHO previously discovered that 99% of the world’s population lives in places that do not meet the recommended air quality levels.
“If the water is bad, you can tell people to wait 30 minutes a day if there’s no water. Water will come. But if you have bad air, you can’t tell people to pause breathing,” she said.
Several cities in Poland, such as Beijing, Seoul, South Korea and Libnik have successfully improved air quality with stricter regulations on pollution from vehicles, power plants and industries. They also promoted cleaner energy and invested in public transport.
Another notable effort to control severe air pollution was the Association of Southeast Asian Countries on Boundary Haze Pollution. Although limited success has been limited up until now, ten countries in the region have pledged to work together to monitor and control pollution from large forest fires, a common occurrence in arid regions.
Shweta Narayan, campaign lead for the World Climate and Health Alliance, said many of the areas witnessing the worst air pollution are also places where planet-acquiring gas is widely released by burning coal, oil and gas. Reducing planetary emissions and slowing planetary heating could also improve air quality, she said.
Air pollution and the climate crisis are “two aspects of the same coin,” she said. ___
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