CNN
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According to a new report, air pollution will soar to harmful levels worldwide by 2021.
The IQAir reportA company that tracks global air quality, found that annual average air pollution in every country — and 97% of cities — exceeded the permissible limit. World Health Organization air quality guidelinesdesigned to help governments draft regulations to protect public health.
Only 222 of the 6,475 cities analyzed had average air quality that met WHO standards. Three territories were detected that met WHO guidelines: the French territory of New Caledonia and the US territory of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are among the countries with the worst air pollution, exceeding guidelines by at least 10 times.
Scandinavia, Australia, Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom ranked among the countries with the best air quality, with averages exceeding the guidelines by 1 to 2 times.
In the US, IQAir found air pollution to exceed WHO guidelines by 2 to 3 times by 2021.
“This report highlights the need for governments around the world to help reduce global air pollution,” Glory Dolphin Hammes, CEO of IQAir North America, told CNN. “(Fine particulate matter) kills too many people each year, and governments need to set more stringent national air quality standards and explore better foreign policies that promote air quality. better atmosphere.”
Above: IQAir analyzed the annual average air quality of over 6,000 cities and classified them from best air quality, blue (Meets WHO PM2.5 standards) to worst, purple (Exceeds WHO PM2.5 guidelines by more than 10 times). ONE Interactive map available from IQ Air.
This is the first major global air quality report based on the new WHO standard. annual air pollution guidethat is Updated in September 2021. The new guidelines have halved the acceptable concentration of fine particulate matter – or PM 2.5 – from 10 to 5 micrograms per cubic meter.
PM 2.5 is the smallest pollutant but also one of the most dangerous. When inhaled, it goes deep into the lung tissue, where it can enter the bloodstream. It comes from sources such as fossil fuel burning, dust storms and wildfires, and is associated with a number of health threats including asthma, heart disease and other respiratory diseases.
Millions of people die each year from air quality problems. In 2016, about 4.2 million premature deaths according to WHO is related to fine particulate matter. If the 2021 guidelines were applied that year, WHO finds there could be nearly 3.3 million fewer pollution-related deaths.
IQAir analyzed pollution monitoring stations in 6,475 cities across 117 countries, regions and territories.
In the US, air pollution will spike in 2021 compared to 2020. Of more than 2,400 US cities According to the analysis, the air in Los Angeles remains the most polluted, despite a 6% drop from 2020. Atlanta and Minneapolis found significant increase in a state of contamination, the report showed.
The authors write: “(U.S.) dependence on fossil fuels, increasing severity of wildfires, and enforcement of the Clean Air Act vary from administration to government. Other rights have all added to America’s air pollution.”
The main sources of pollution in the United States are transportation, energy production and fossil fuel-powered wildfires, which devastate the land’s most vulnerable and marginalized communities, researchers say. water.
“We depend a lot on fossil fuels, especially for transportation,” said Hammes, who lives a few miles from Los Angeles. “We can act smart on this with zero emissions, but we haven’t done it yet. And this is having a devastating effect on the air pollution we’re seeing in the big cities.”
Wildfires caused by climate change will play an important role in reducing air quality in the United States by 2021. The authors pointed to a number of fires that lead to dangerous air pollution. — including the Caldor and Dixie fires in California, as well as the Bootleg Fires in Oregon which smoke drifts across the east coast in July.
China — one of the countries with the worst air pollution — sees improved air quality in 2021. More than half of the Chinese cities analyzed in the report have levels Air pollution is lower than the previous year. According to the report, the capital Beijing continued the trend of improving air quality for 5 years, due to a policy-oriented withdrawal of polluting industries in the city.
The report also shows that the Amazon Rainforesthas acted as the world’s main defender against the climate crisis, emitting more carbon dioxide than it absorbed last year. Deforest And Forest fires threaten vital ecosystems, pollute the air and contribute to climate change.
“This is all part of the recipe that will lead to or is leading to global warming.” Hammes said.
The report also reveals some inequalities: Monitoring stations are still scarce in some developing countries in Africa, South America and the Middle East, leading to a lack of data on air quality in those areas. that area.
“When you don’t have that data, you’re really in the dark,” Hammes said.
Hammes noted that the African country of Chad was included in the report for the first time, due to an improvement in its surveillance network. IQAir found the country’s air pollution levels to be the second highest in the world last year, after Bangladesh.
Tarik Benmarhnia, a climate change epidemiologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who has studied the health effects of wildfire smoke, also notes that relying solely on monitoring stations can lead to spots blind in these reports.
“I think it’s great that they rely on different networks and not just government sources,” Benmarhnia, who was not involved in this report, told CNN. “However, many areas do not have enough stations and alternative techniques exist.”
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conclusions in the 2021 report that, in addition to slowing global warming, limiting fossil fuel use would have the added benefit of improving air quality and public health.
Hammes says the IQAir report gives even more reason for the world to phase out fossil fuels.
“We got the report, we could read it, we were able to absorb it and really dedicate ourselves to taking action,” she said. “There needs to be a big move towards renewables. We need drastic action to reverse global warming; otherwise, the impact and the train we’re on (would be) irreversible.”
