Data released on Tuesday, the 11th of March, by Swiss air quality monitoring company IQAir showed that only seven countries met World Health Organisation (WHO) air quality standards last year, and researchers warned that the fight against smog will become even harder after the US suspended its global monitoring, according to Reuters and The Guardian.
The most polluted countries in 2024 were Chad, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and India, according to the data.
The report found that PM2.5 levels in all five countries were at least ten times higher than the WHO’s recommended standards, and in Chad were as much as 18 times higher than the recommended level.
ONLY AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, BAHAMAS, BARBADOS, GRENADA, ESTONIA AND ICELAND’S AIR QUALITY MET THE STANDARDS, IQAIR SAID.
The WHO recommends that the average level of small, hazardous particles in the air (PM2.5) should not exceed 5mg/km3.
Doctors say there is no safe level of PM2.5, which is small enough to enter the bloodstream and damage organs throughout the body but have calculated that following their guidance could save millions of lives every year.
Dirty air is the second biggest risk factor for death after high blood pressure.
“Air pollution doesn’t kill us instantly – it can take two to three decades before we notice the health effects, unless it’s very extreme,” said Frank Hammes, CEO of IQAir. “[Avoiding it] is one of those preventative things that people only think about when it’s too late.”
The annual report, now in its seventh year, highlights some successes. It found that the share of cities meeting PM2.5 standards rose from 9% in 2023 to 17% in 2024.
Air pollution in India, home to six of the world’s 10 most polluted cities, fell by 7% between 2023 and 2024. Birnyhat, located in the northeastern part of the country, which is heavily industrialised, ranked first with an average PM2.5 level of 128mg/km3.
Air quality has also improved in China, part of a long-term trend that saw the country’s extreme PM2.5 pollution almost halve between 2013 and 2020.
Air quality in Beijing is now almost the same as in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The city is the most polluted in Europe for the second year in a row, the report found.
But the global picture is obscured by a significant lack of data, particularly in Asia and Africa, and many developing countries have relied on air quality sensors installed in US embassies and consulates to monitor smog levels.
However, the US State Department recently discontinued the scheme due to budget constraints and last week more than 17 years of data, including readings collected in Chad, were removed from the US government’s official air quality monitoring website, airnow.gov.
Experts have warned that climate change is worsening pollution levels as warmer temperatures lead to bigger and longer wildfires, which are raging in some countries in south-east Asia and South America.
Christa Hasenkopf, director of the Clean Air Programme at the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute (EPIC), said at least 34 countries would lose access to reliable pollution data when the US programme closes.
The State Department programme improved air quality in cities where monitors were deployed, increasing life expectancy and even reducing risk allowances for US diplomats, meaning it paid for itself, Hasenkopf said.
“(This) is a huge blow to efforts to improve air quality around the world,” she said.