This Country Has The Worst Air Pollution In The World

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The IQAir World Air Quality Report for 2024, the seventh such report, has just been released. Its data is based on approximately 40,000 air quality monitoring stations in 8,954 locations, covering 138 countries, territories, and regions. The foundation of the measurements is µg/m3 (The concentration of an air pollutant is given in micrograms (one-millionth of a gram) per cubic meter of air)

WHO Guidelines

Only seven countries are under the WHO guidelines for an annual PM2.5 guideline of 5 µg/m3. These are Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Estonia, Grenada, Iceland, and New Zealand.

The nation with the worst score is Chad (91.8 µg/m3), 18 times higher than the WHO PM2.5 annual guideline. It is followed by Bangladesh (78.0 µg/m3), which is more than 15 times higher than the WHO PM2.5 annual guideline, Pakistan (73.7 µg/m3), more than 14 times higher than the WHO PM2.5 annual guideline, Democratic Republic of the Congo (58.2 µg/m3) which is more than 11 times higher than the WHO PM2.5 annual guideline, India (50.6 µg/m3) which is more than 10 times higher than the WHO PM2.5 annual guideline, Bangladesh (78.0 µg/m3), which is more than 15 times higher than the WHO PM2.5 annual guideline and Pakistan (73.7 µg/m3) which is more than 14 times higher than the WHO PM2.5 annual guideline.

Danger In India

Byrnihat, India, was the most polluted metropolitan area of 2024, with an annual average PM2.5 concentration of 128.2 µg/m3.

On Dec. 14, 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) strengthened the nation’s air quality standards for fine particle pollution to improve public health protection by revising the primary annual PM2.5 standard to 12 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3) and retaining the 24-hour fine particle standard of 35 μg/m3.

Figures higher than the US standard can cause heart attack and stroke.

Since there is little evidence of a drop in the use of fossil fuels among the nations with the highest scores, there is no reason to think these will improve.