New report shows these are the places with the best and worst air quality in 2021

CNN
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Global air pollution will soar to unhealthy levels in 2021, according to a new report.

The report by IQAir, a company that tracks global air quality, found that average annual air pollution levels in every country (and 97% of cities) exceeded the World Health Organization's air quality guidelines, which are designed to help governments develop regulations to protect public health.

Of the 6,475 cities analyzed, only 222 met the World Health Organization's average air quality standards. Three territories were found to be in compliance with WHO guidelines: the French territory of New Caledonia and the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are among the countries with the worst air pollution, exceeding standards by at least 10 times.

Scandinavian countries, Australia, Canada, Japan and the UK were among the countries with the best air quality, with average levels exceeding guidelines by one to two times.

IQAir found that air pollution levels in the United States in 2021 exceeded World Health Organization guidelines by 2 to 3 times.

“This report highlights the need for governments around the world to help reduce global air pollution,” IQAir North America CEO Glory Dolphin Hammes told CNN. “(Fine particulate matter) kills too many people every year and governments need to enact stricter air pollution regulations.” quality national standards and explore better foreign policies to promote better air quality.”

Above: IQAir analyzed the average annual air quality in more than 6,000 cities and ranked it from the best air quality (blue) (in line with WHO PM2.5 guidelines) to the worst (purple) (exceeding WHO PM2.5 guidelines10 times or more) are classified. one Interactive map Can be obtained from IQ air.

This is the first global air quality report based on the World Health Organization's new annual air pollution guidelines, which were updated in September 2021. The new guidelines lower the acceptable concentration of fine particulate matter, known as PM 2.5, from 10 micrograms per cubic meter to 5 micrograms.

PM 2.5 is the smallest pollutant, but it is also one of the most dangerous. When inhaled, it penetrates deep into lung tissue and enters the bloodstream. It comes from sources such as fossil fuel burning, dust storms and wildfires, and has been linked to many health threats, including asthma, heart disease and other respiratory illnesses.

Millions of people die every year from air quality problems. According to the World Health Organization, about 4.2 million premature deaths were linked to fine particulate matter in 2016. The WHO found that if the 2021 guidelines had been applied that year, nearly 3.3 million fewer pollution-related deaths might have occurred.

IQAir analyzed pollution monitoring stations in 6,475 cities in 117 countries, regions and territories.

In the United States, air pollution surged in 2021 compared to 2020. Of the more than 2,400 U.S. cities analyzed, Los Angeles still had the worst air pollution, despite a 6% drop compared with 2020. Pollution increased significantly in Atlanta and Minneapolis, report shows.

“Reliance on fossil fuels, growing wildfire severity, and varying enforcement of the Clean Air Act across administrations all contribute to U.S. air pollution,” the authors wrote.

Researchers say the nation's leading sources of pollution are fossil fuel-driven transportation, energy production and wildfires, which wreak havoc on the country's most vulnerable and marginalized communities.

“We rely heavily on fossil fuels, especially for transportation,” said Harms, who lives a few miles from Los Angeles. “We could sensibly move to zero emissions, but we still don't. This has a devastating impact on the air pollution we see in our big cities.”

Wildfires caused by climate change played a large role in declining air quality in the United States in 2021. The authors point to a number of fires that contribute to dangerous air pollution, including the Caldo and Dixie fires in California and the Bootleg fire in the United States. In July, Oregon smoke drifts all the way to the East Coast.

China, one of the countries with the worst air pollution, saw some improvements in air quality in 2021. Air pollution levels in more than half of the Chinese cities analyzed in the report fell from the previous year. Air quality in the capital Beijing continued a five-year trend of improvement as policies pushed to shrink polluting industries in the city, the report said.

The report also found that the Amazon rainforest, the world's main defense against the climate crisis, emitted more carbon dioxide than it absorbed last year. Deforestation and wildfires threaten important ecosystems, pollute the air and exacerbate climate change.

“This is all part of the equation that will cause or is causing global warming,” Harms said.

The report also reveals some inequalities: some developing countries in Africa, South America and the Middle East still have few monitoring stations, resulting in a lack of air quality data in these regions.

“When you don’t have that data, you really don’t know anything,” Harms said.

Harms noted that the African country Chad was included in the report for the first time due to improvements in monitoring networks. IQAir found the country had the second-highest air pollution in the world last year, behind only Bangladesh.

Tarik Benmarhnia, a climate change epidemiologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography who studies the health effects of wildfire smoke, also noted that relying solely on monitoring stations could lead to these reports. Blind spots.

“I think it's good that they relied on different networks and not just government sources,” Benmania, who was not involved in this report, told CNN. “However, many areas do not have enough sites and alternative technologies exist.”

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in its 2021 report that in addition to slowing the rate of global warming, limiting the use of fossil fuels would have the added benefit of improving air quality and public health.

Harms said IQAir’s report is even more reason to transition the world away from fossil fuels.

“We've got the report, we can read it, we can internalize it and really commit to taking action,” she said. “Big steps are needed in renewable energy. We need drastic action to reverse the trend of global warming; otherwise, the impacts and the train we are on will be irreversible.”