Only seven international locations met World Health Organization (WHO) air high quality requirements final 12 months, knowledge confirmed on Tuesday, as researchers warned that the battle on smog would solely get tougher after the United States shut down its international monitoring efforts.
Chad and Bangladesh have been the world’s most polluted international locations in 2024, with common smog ranges greater than 15 instances greater than WHO pointers, in keeping with figures compiled by Swiss air high quality monitoring agency IQAir.
Only Australia, New Zealand, the Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Estonia and Iceland made the grade, IQAir mentioned.
Significant knowledge gaps, particularly in Asia and Africa, cloud the worldwide image, and plenty of creating international locations have relied on air high quality sensors mounted on U.S. embassy and consulate buildings to trace their smog ranges.
However, the State Department has lately ended the scheme, citing funds constraints, with greater than 17 years of knowledge eliminated final week from the U.S. authorities’s official air high quality monitoring web site, airnow.gov, together with readings collected in Chad.
“Most countries have a few other data sources, but it’s going to impact Africa significantly, because oftentimes these are the only sources of publicly available real-time air quality monitoring data,” mentioned Christi Chester-Schroeder, IQAir’s air high quality science supervisor.
Data considerations meant Chad was excluded from IQAir’s 2023 record, but it surely was additionally ranked probably the most polluted nation in 2022, tormented by Sahara mud in addition to uncontrolled crop burning.
Average concentrations of small, hazardous airborne particles often called PM2.5 hit 91.8 micrograms per cubic metre (mg/cu m) final 12 months within the nation, barely greater than 2022.
The WHO recommends ranges of not more than 5 mg/cu m, a regular met by solely 17% of cities final 12 months.
India, fifth within the smog rankings behind Chad, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, noticed common PM2.5 fall 7% on the 12 months to 50.6 mg/cu m.
But it accounted for 12 of the highest 20 most polluted cities, with Byrnihat, in a closely industrialised a part of the nation’s northeast, in first place, registering a median PM2.5 degree of 128 mg/cu m.
Climate change is taking part in an rising function in driving up air pollution, Chester-Schroeder warned, with greater temperatures inflicting fiercer and lengthier forest fires that swept by components of South East Asia and South America.
Christa Hasenkopf, director of the Clean Air Program on the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute (EPIC), mentioned a minimum of 34 international locations will lose entry to dependable air pollution knowledge after the U.S. programme was closed.
The State Department scheme improved air high quality within the cities the place the screens have been positioned, boosting life expectancy and even lowering hazard allowances for U.S. diplomats, which means that it paid for itself, Hasenkopf mentioned.
“(It) is a giant blow to air quality efforts worldwide,” she mentioned.
Source: www.anews.com.tr