WHO Air Quality: Vast Majority Of Countries Fail To Meet Standards

The vast majority of countries are failing to meet the international air quality standard, according to a new report.

Failure To Meet Air Quality Standards

In the latest data released by IQAir, a Swiss air quality organization that collects data from over 30,000 monitoring stations worldwide, only seven countries-less than 4%-had air quality levels at or below the healthy annual average suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2023.

Out of the 134 countries and areas surveyed in the report, only Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland, Mauritius, and New Zealand meet the WHO recommendation limit for microscopic airborne particles ejected by cars, trucks, and industrial operations.

The study focused on tiny particulate matter, or PM2.5, which is the type of microscopic speck of soot less than the width of a human hair that, when inhaled, can cause a slew of health problems and deaths, posing serious risks to people's lives.

While the world's air is generally cleaner than it was for much of the previous century, there are still areas where pollution levels are extremely deadly.

According to the IQAir research, Pakistan is the most polluted country, with PM2.5 levels more than 14 times higher than the WHO threshold, followed by India, Tajikistan, and Burkina Faso.

However, even in wealthy and rapidly developing countries, progress in reducing air pollution is threatened.

Canada, long thought to have some of the cleanest air in the Western world, became the worst for PM2.5 last year as a result of record wildfires that ravaged the country, spreading toxic smoke over the country and into the United States.

In China, advances in air quality were hampered last year by a return in economic activity following the Covid-19 outbreak, with the report revealing a 6.5% increase in PM2.5 levels.

"Anything that we can do to reduce air pollution will be tremendously impactful in the long term also for improving our climate gas emissions, and vice versa," said IQAir Global CEO Frank Hammes.

Human-Caused Climate Problem

The human-caused climate problem, fueled by the usage of fossil fuels, has a "pivotal" impact on air pollution levels, according to the IQAir assessment.

The climate crisis is affecting weather patterns, including changes in wind and rainfall that affect pollutant dispersion. According to the report, climate change would exacerbate pollution by making extreme temperatures more severe and frequent.

Aidan Farrow, senior air quality scientist at Greenpeace International, added that better air quality monitoring is also required.

"In 2023 air pollution remained a global health catastrophe, IQAir's global data set provides an important reminder of the resulting injustices and the need to implement the many solutions that exist to this problem," he said.

The report confirms previous WHO figures, which show that air pollution levels exceed acceptable limits almost everywhere in the world, with at least nine out of ten people living in areas with poor air quality.

Fine particulate matter causes around 7 million deaths worldwide each year and reduces the average person's life expectancy by 2.3 years, for a total of 17.8 billion years.

In 2021, the WHO reduced its guideline for "safe" PM2.5 levels to five micrograms per cubic meter, and many countries, including those in Europe that have greatly improved their air quality in the last 20 years, fell short of this standard.