September 7 is the International Day of “Clean Air for Blue Skies”, celebrated by the UN. This Saturday is an opportunity to remember that millions of people die each year around the world from complications related to air pollution. Among the cities with the most polluted air in the world is Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
2 min
The city of Kinshasa has, on average, a rate of PM 2.5 (fine particles present in the air and which are harmful to health), ten times higher than the air quality threshold recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Contacted by RFI, climatologist Jean-Pierre Ndjibu discusses the main causes why Kinshasa is so polluted: ” You have a very large city with more than 15 million inhabitants who live in complete promiscuity and this is what makes the city produce a lot of waste. It is the quantity of waste that makes the avenues, rivers and streets become public dumps, it is one of the first causes and it is the most important because, at the time of decomposition, the elements are imported into the atmosphere and constitute suspended particles.
” The second root cause is very fast vehicles. pollutants and which often run on fuel that is not a clean fuel. We also have charcoal. There is a large amount of wood consumption, an energy that also produces carbon dioxide. And apart from that, there are the industries that are in Kinshasa and which also produce a lot of suspended particles. With the movement of air masses and all that put back in the atmosphere, air quality becomes very problematic. »
UN calls for action
Almost all of the planet’s inhabitants, that is, ” Nine out of ten people breathe air that is unfit for consumption. This means that the air exceeds WHO limits and contains high levels of pollutants, with low- and middle-income countries being the most affected. “, declared Lorenzo Labrador, Chief Scientist at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), before adding that ” “The first thing that cities need to do is acknowledge that there is a problem,” Labrador said, noting that “so these cities and countries need to first acknowledge that there is an air quality problem and that there is enough data around the world to acknowledge that this is a global problem, particularly in urban areas. »
On the occasion of the International Day of Clean Air for blue skiesUN Secretary-General António Guterres has launched a strong appeal for stronger international cooperation to address ” the global emergency ” which constitutes the worsening of air pollution.
Also readIn South Africa, the city of Johannesburg wants to fight against air pollution