4.2 million premature deaths occurred in 2016 due to air pollution
A recent report has shown that most of the cities in the world exceed the World Health Organisation’s air quality guidelines.
The guidelines were created to help countries develop regulations to protect public health. IQAir, a company which tracks the world’s air quality, has shown the best and the worst cities for air quality in 2021. The organisation studied nearly 6,500 cities and only 222 of them were found to be meeting WHO’s instructions.
The worst countries for air quality were found to be South Asia which were all exceeding the WHO standards by 10 times. These were mainly India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.
The best countries for air quality were the Scandinavian countries, the UK, Australia, Canada, and Japan. These countries were seen exceeding guidelines by at least one time. In the US, according to the report, WHO guidelines were violated two to three times.
WHO reports have shown that millions of people die annually simply due to bad air quality. An estimated 4.2 million premature deaths occurred in 2016 due to air pollution.
