In only seven countries do fine particle emissions fall below the limit value that the World Health Organization WHO considers safe in terms of air quality, says the Swiss organization’s report.
Most of the world’s countries have more fine particle emissions than the World Health Organization WHO recommends.
Only in Finland, Australia, Estonia, Iceland, Grenada, Mauritius and New Zealand did the amount of small particles fall below the limit value set by the WHO. A Swiss organization tells about it IQAirwhich has evaluated the results of more than 30,000 air quality measuring stations.
The Swiss organization’s report has been reported by, among others, a British newspaper The Guardian and a US magazine The New York Times.
The WHO recommends that people’s breathing air should not contain more than 5 micrograms of fine particles per cubic meter. In the worst polluted countries, there were more than 10 times more fine particles than recommended.
The worst breathing air was in the countries of South and Central Asia: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Tajikistan. The air is primarily polluted by the area’s road traffic, industry and coal burning. In addition, emissions are worsened by the fact that many people burn wood and dung for cooking and heating.
Globally, the air is cleaner than before, but in many places the air quality has deteriorated in recent years.
In Canada, for example, air quality deteriorated due to extensive forest fires. In China, on the other hand, fine particle emissions increased by 6.5 percent last year, when industrial production recovered after the corona pandemic.
Small particles cause many different health problems
Globally, an estimated 7 million people die from air pollution every year, reports The Guardian. That’s more than AIDS and Malaria Deaths combined.
Above all, residents of developing countries suffer from health problems. For example, in Bangladesh, even one in five premature deaths is caused by air pollution, reports the Reuters news agency.
Even short exposures of a few hours or days to small particle emissions can be life-threatening for people belonging to risk groups, such as the elderly, small children or people with long-term illnesses. Short exposures cause about one million premature deaths each year, according to The New York Times to recent research referring to.