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- March 19, 2024
- Kainat Shakeel
- 0
Pakistan remained one of the three most polluted countries in the world in 2023, with particulate matter levels around 15 times higher than those advised by the World Health Organization. Bangladesh and India displaced Chad and Iran in the rankings. The information was released on Tuesday. Small airborne particles known as PM2.5, which cause lung damage, were found in Bangladesh and Pakistan at average concentrations of 79.9 and 73.7 micrograms per cubic meter, respectively, in 2023.
A maximum of 5 micrograms is advised by the WHO. According to Christi Chester Schroeder, air quality scientific manager at IQAir, a Swiss air monitoring company, “You get this streak of PM2.5 concentrations that just skyrocket because the pollution has nowhere to go because of the climate conditions and the geography (in South Asia).” “There are other factors like population density, industry, and agricultural practices on top of that,” she continued. “Sadly, it appears that things will worsen before they get better.”
India was ranked ninth and Bangladesh fifth in air quality in 2022. A specialist on air pollution from Dhaka’s North South University, Md Firoz Khan, stated that air pollution causes about 20 percent of premature deaths in Bangladesh and that associated healthcare expenses account for 4–5% of the nation’s GDP. Last year, PM2.5 readings in India were around eleven times higher than the WHO threshold, indicating an increase in pollution. With 92.7 micrograms, New Delhi, India, was the capital city with the lowest performance. In China, PM2.5 increased by 6.3% to 32.5 micrograms last year, following five years of increases.
In 2023, Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland, Mauritius, and New Zealand only satisfied the WHO standards. The IQAir report was produced based on information from over 30,000 monitoring stations spread throughout 134 nations and regions. Due to data problems, Chad, which was the most polluted nation in the world in 2022, was left off of the 2023 listings. Sudan and Iran were also removed from the list for 2023. According to Christa Hasenkopf, director of the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute’s Air Quality Life Index, 39% of nations lack public air quality monitoring.
Amazingly, there isn’t a concerted worldwide effort to provide resources to fill these data gaps, particularly in areas where the health impact of air pollution has been highest, she added, given the significant potential benefits and relatively cheap cost.