Air pollution is a greater global threat than Ebola and HIV, according to warnings from the World Health Organization (WHO). According to a recently published WHO report, one in four deaths among children under the age of five is now associated with environmental hazards such as air emissions and polluted water.
In particular, the report says that at the beginning of this year, levels of air pollution in London at certain times were higher than in Beijing, and the sources of these pollution in the British capital often exceeded the legal limits. However, according to WHO, London is only in the middle of the list of cities in the world, ranked in order of increasing levels of air pollution. The British capital ranks 1,338 out of nearly 3,000 cities around the world monitored by this international organization.
WHO guidelines state that cities should strive to achieve an annual average PM2.5 (extremely fine particles) concentration of no more than 10 micrograms per cubic meter of air. In 2013, in London in 2013, this figure was 15 micrograms per cubic meter, which is much lower than the pollution level in Beijing - 85.2 μg / m3.
These particles are very small in diameter and are classified as carcinogenic by many leading healthcare organizations. Experts estimate that thousands of deaths a year are associated with air pollution in Britain alone.
According to WHO, the most polluted city in the world is the Iranian city of Zabol. The concentration of PM2.5 was found to have averaged around 217 µg / m3 over the last year, in other words more than twenty times the recommended limit.
The next two "record holders" from the WHO list are in India. These are the cities of Gwalior and Allahabad. It is noteworthy that the first non-Asian city with the highest pollution rates - Bamenda in Cameroon, took only eighth place on the WHO list. As for Europe, the record holder of the old continent was the city of Tetovo in Macedonia, followed by Tuzla (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
However, given that these ratings are based on data obtained in 2013, the situation may have changed since then. In addition, any city may have significantly higher peaks in air emissions, but the annual average counts.
The WHO database is by no means an exhaustive source. Many cities around the world simply cannot provide air pollution indicators of sufficient quality to be included in this list.
Promotional video:
However, according to the available data, it is most likely that the elevated concentration of PM2.5, that is, exceeding its recommended level of 10 µg / m3, is primarily characteristic of Asian cities. Thus, it was found that only four out of 632 settlements in Asia have this indicator below the specified permissible limit. This, in turn, means that the atmosphere of about 99.4 percent of Asian cities is overly polluted.
It is highly likely that African cities have also exceeded the recommended pollution limits. As for the cities of Oceania, on the contrary, they are the cleanest.
Igor Abramov
