The 15 Countries That Have Seen Pollution Increase The Most
Is there more air pollution in the world than there was half a century ago? The answer depends on where people live, how pollution is measured, and how effectively laws and modern technology have curbed it. Some changes, however, are unavoidable. The world’s population has doubled, the number of people living in cities has nearly quadrupled, and there are almost ten times as many cars on the road as in the 1970s.
Most air quality reports use the same yardsticks as the American Lung Association’s annual State of the Air Report: ozone (commonly called smog) and particle pollution, a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets suspended in the air.
Although there are several ways to measure air pollution, one thing is certain: the world’s air has become more dangerous. The State of Global Air Report 2024 warned that “Air pollution poses an enormous — and growing — public health challenge. It is now the second leading risk factor for early death worldwide, surpassed only by high blood pressure. Air pollution also outranks tobacco as a leading cause of death and disability.”
ClimateCrisis247 uses carbon dioxide (CO2) as its primary measure of air pollution, reflecting the level of this dangerous gas in the atmosphere.
Which nations have seen the fastest increases?
Some nations have seen their pollution rise much faster than others, and the pace for a few is staggering. We used data from the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists that tracks carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, oil, and natural gas and from making cement. The data is published by Our World in Data, a research group based at the University of Oxford.
As we often do, we looked at the data on a per-person basis, which allows us to compare smaller countries with larger ones. The world average rose from 4.2 tons of carbon dioxide per person in the mid-1970s to 4.7 tons today.
To smooth out the effects of recessions and the COVID-19 pandemic, which drove down pollution for more than a year as people curtailed normal activity, we averaged three years at each end of the period: 1974 through 1976 and 2023 through 2025.
We have complete data for 55 nations, including most of the large countries, particularly those with developed or developing economies.
In many countries, emissions rose far faster than the world average, and in some cases they roughly tripled. It is no surprise that nations that industrialized rapidly over the period appear on the list, including South Korea, China, and Taiwan. Several oil-producing nations, such as Libya and Kuwait, also made the list.
Why does Trinidad and Tobago top the list? The UN’s explanation is that “Urban centres face compounding impacts from vehicular emissions, industrial pollutants and the urban heat-island effect, all of which degrade air quality.”
Countries That Have Gotten More Polluted Than the Rest of the World
| Rank | Country | Tons per person, mid-1970s | Tons per person, today | Increase (tons per person) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Trinidad and Tobago | 10.9 | 20.6 | 9.6 |
| 2 | Mongolia | 2.7 | 11.8 | 9.1 |
| 3 | South Korea | 2.2 | 11.3 | 9.1 |
| 4 | Oman | 7.6 | 16.1 | 8.6 |
| 5 | Taiwan | 2.8 | 11.2 | 8.4 |
| 6 | China | 1.2 | 8.7 | 7.5 |
| 7 | Malaysia | 1.7 | 8.4 | 6.7 |
| 8 | Iran | 4.2 | 9.2 | 5.0 |
| 9 | Libya | 5.2 | 9.9 | 4.7 |
| 10 | Turkey | 1.6 | 5.3 | 3.7 |
| 11 | Kuwait | 18.7 | 22.4 | 3.7 |
| 12 | Bahrain | 20.4 | 24.0 | 3.6 |
| 13 | Equatorial Guinea | 0.2 | 3.4 | 3.2 |
| 14 | Vietnam | 0.4 | 3.5 | 3.1 |
| 15 | Thailand | 0.6 | 3.6 | 3.0 |
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