A new report published by CNN confirmed that only 13 countries and regions in the world enjoyed healthy air quality during the past year, while other regions did not get rid of the dangerous increase in air pollutants during the year 2022.
The report from IQAir, a company that monitors air quality worldwide, found that average annual air pollution in nearly 90 percent of the countries and territories whose air was analyzed exceeded air quality guidelines issued by the World Health Organization.
The company studied the average air quality in 131 countries and territories, and found that only six countries, namely Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland and New Zealand, and seven territories in the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean, Guam and Puerto Rico, had atmospheres that met the standards of the World Health Organization, which set the average level of air pollution at 5. micrograms per cubic meter or less.
On the other hand, the air quality in 8 countries: Chad, Iraq, Pakistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Kuwait and India, was classified as poor, as it exceeded the guidelines of the World Health Organization, with an average pollution of more than 50 micrograms per cubic meter.
As for the ninth place, Egypt came, with a rate of 46.5 micrograms per cubic meter, followed by Tajikistan, with 46 micrograms per cubic meter.
The study specifically noted the smallest and most dangerous pollutants when inhaled, such as PM2.5, which travels deep into lung tissue, can enter the bloodstream, and is produced from Fossil fuel combustion, dust storms, and wildfires can cause asthma, heart disease, and other respiratory diseases.
In the framework, the report highlighted the inequality in light of the lack of monitoring stations in developing countries in Africa, South America and the Middle East, which leads to a scarcity of air quality data in those regions.
According to IQAir, only 19 out of 54 African countries have sufficient data available from their monitoring stations. Although Africa witnessed an improvement in the number of countries included in this year’s report compared to 2021. The African reality has been addressed Glory Dolphin Hames, North America CEO of IQAir, told the network: “If you look at the so-called satellite or model data, Africa should probably be the most polluted continent on the planet, but we don’t have enough data. And what that means is that there’s a lot of data that we need to really be able to identify the most polluted countries and cities in the world.”
In the United States, the report found that air pollution improved significantly last year compared to 2021 due to the relatively mild wildfire season, while China, which for decades was near the top of the country’s air pollutants, will continue to show improvements in air quality in 2022. Approximately 64 percent of the 524 cities whose air was analyzed in China saw a decrease in the amount of PM2.5.
But the report noted that coal use in China remains a major concern for the climate and the environment, despite the improvement, as none of the Chinese cities adhered to the annual guidelines of the World Health Organization.
Despite the Russia-Ukraine war, the IQAir report shows that Ukraine has expanded its air monitoring networks, tripling the number of data collected in 2022 compared to 2021.