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air quality
Only 7 Countries Meet WHO's Air Quality Guidelines as Fossil Fuels Worsen Pollution
"The science is pretty clear about the impacts of air pollution and yet we are so accustomed to having a background level of pollution that's too high to be healthy," said an official at Swiss firm IQAir.
Mar 19, 2024
A Swiss air quality monitoring firm on Tuesday said its latest worldwide data reveals the need for more walkable cities and a swift transition away from planet-heating fossil fuels, as just 7 out of 134 countries were found to meet global standards for dangerous air pollution.
IQAir found that Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland, Mauritius, and New Zealand were the only countries that met the World Health Organization's (WHO) guidelines for particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) pollution, which is made up of microscopic airborne particles and can become embedded in peoples' lungs and even their bloodstreams, especially in cases of high exposure.
Three territories—Bermuda, French Polynesia, and Puerto Rico—also met WHO's standard.
PM2.5 can cause or aggravate asthma and has been linked to worsened lung function, heart attacks, respiratory ailments, and irregular heartbeat.
While IQAir measured countries' air quality against WHO's guideline for "safe" PM2.5 levels—five micrograms per cubic meter—U.S. scientists found last month that there is no safe amount of PM2.5 for humans.
IQAir found that PM2.5 levels were highest in the Global South. Bangladesh was found to have more than 15 times the amount of PM2.5 pollution than what is advised by WHO, while Pakistan's level was 14 times higher. The most polluted metropolitan area in 2023 was Begusarai, India, and India had four of most polluted cities in the world.
But "things have gone backwards" in wealthy countries as well, Glory Dolphin Hammes, North America chief executive of IQAir, told The Guardian, particularly as planetary heating has fueled wildfires like those that stunned scientists in Canada and Europe last year.
Canada, long a leader in air quality, had a PM2.5 level of 10.3 in 2023, and air quality across North America was "significantly influenced by extensive Canadian wildfires that raged from May to October." More than 40% of Canadian cities recorded annual PM2.5 levels that exceeded 10 micrograms per cubic meter. Eleven percent, or 35 cities, exceeded 15 micrograms per cubic meter, compared to just a single city in 2022.
World Weather Attribution directly linked Canada's wildfires to the climate emergency,
saying fossil fuel combustion and the resulting planetary heating made the blazes twice as likely.
The country's PM2.5 levels last year showed that governments "should act to make their cities more walkable and less reliant upon cars, amend forestry practices to help curtail the impact of wildfire smoke, and move more quickly to embrace clean energy in place of fossil fuels," Hammes told The Guardian.
"The science is pretty clear about the impacts of air pollution and yet we are so accustomed to having a background level of pollution that's too high to be healthy," she said. "We are not making adjustments fast enough."
Robb Barnes, climate program director for the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, said the report shows Canada is "no exception" as governments are urged to confront the fact that "climate change, pollution, and burning fossil fuels is disastrous for human health."
Air pollution is blamed for an estimated 7 million premature deaths each year, with countries in the Global South—where clean energy sources are less available for heating and other uses—reporting the most deaths linked to PM2.5.
Frank Hammes, global CEO of IQAir, noted that much of the Global South, including many countries in Africa, lack air quality monitoring mechanisms.
"A clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a universal human right. In many parts of the world the lack of air quality data delays decisive action and perpetuates unnecessary human suffering," said Hammes in a statement. "Air quality data saves lives."
In order to prevent more premature deaths linked to PM2.5 pollution, the report said, policymakers in Canada and other wealthy countries where air quality suffered in 2023 must take decisive steps to decrease PM2.5 emissions from fossil fuel-powered vehicles, power plants, and industrial processes, including:
- Broadening the adoption of renewable, clean energy in public transportation systems;
- Providing subsidies for battery-powered and human-powered modes of transportation;
- Championing infrastructure projects that enhance pedestrian mobility; and
- Introducing incentive programs to stimulate the adoption of clean air vehicles for commercial and personal purposes.
"IQAir's annual report illustrates the international nature and inequitable consequences of the enduring air pollution crisis," said Aidan Farrow, senior air quality scientist for Greenpeace International. "In 2023 air pollution remained a global health catastrophe. IQAir's global data set provides an important reminder of the resulting injustices and the need to implement the many solutions that exist to this problem."
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Global Air Pollution Is Cutting More Than 2 Years Off Average Human Life Expectancy: Report
"Particulate pollution remains the world's greatest external risk to human health, with the impact on life expectancy comparable to that of smoking."
Aug 29, 2023
High and rising levels of global particulate matter pollution—caused by wildfires, the combustion of fossil fuels, and other factors—are cutting 2.3 years off of the average human's life expectancy, according to research unveiled Tuesday.
The latest version of the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), produced annually by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), estimates that fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution's impact on global human life expectancy is "comparable to that of smoking, more than three times that of alcohol use and unsafe water, more than five times that of transport injuries like car crashes, and more than seven times that of HIV/AIDS."
Despite the terrible impact of air pollution on human health, governments around the world are doing little to address the crisis, according to EPIC's research.
"While there is a large global fund for HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis that annually disburses 4 billion USD toward the issues, there is no equivalent set of coordinated resources for air pollution," the new report states. "The entire continent of Africa receives under 300,000 USD in philanthropic funds toward air pollution. Just 1.4 million USD goes to Asia (outside of China and India). Europe, the United States, and Canada receive 34 million USD, according to the Clean Air Fund."
Michael Greenstone, a creator of the AQLI, noted in a statement that "three-quarters of air pollution's impact on global life expectancy occurs in just six countries, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, China, Nigeria, and Indonesia, where people lose one to more than six years off their lives because of the air they breathe."
In the United States, 20 of the 30 most polluted counties in 2021 were in California, which saw more than 8,800 fires that year. Plumas County, California was the most polluted area of the U.S. in 2021.
The new research estimates that Plumas residents could gain 2.1 years of life expectancy if air quality in the California county is brought into line with World Health Organization (WHO) air quality standards.
EPIC's report notes that the annual average PM2.5 level worldwide "has shifted between 3.8 to 7.2 times the WHO guideline, making air pollution the greatest external threat to human health globally."
Reducing global air pollution to levels recommended by the WHO would save a combined 17.8 billion life-years worldwide, according to EPIC.
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Study Ties Long-Term Air Pollution Exposure to Higher Heart Attack, Disease Risk
"Our study clearly adds to the evidence that the current regulatory standards are not sufficient to protect the public," the study's lead author says as the EPA considers stricter standards.
Feb 24, 2023
Adding to the body of research that highlights the deadly effects of air pollution, a study published Friday in JAMA Network Open connects long-term exposure to fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, to heightened risk of having a heart attack or dying from heart disease.
Conducted by experts at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the study was released as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering tougher air quality standards for PM2.5, which comes from sources including construction sites, fires, power plants, and vehicles.
The researchers focused on over 3.7 million adults who were members of the Kaiser Permanente healthcare consortium in Northern California from 2007-16 and had lived in the state for at least a year. They linked each patient's address to a geographical location to establish annual average exposure, then they identified who experienced heart problems.
"Our work has the potential to play an important role in ongoing national conversations led by the Environmental Protection Agency on whether—and how much—to tighten air quality standards."
"We found that people exposed to fine particulate air pollution have an increased risk of experiencing a heart attack or dying from coronary heart disease—even when those exposure levels are at or below our current U.S. air quality standards," said lead author Stacey E. Alexeeff, a research scientist and biostatistician at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research.
Specifically, they found that PM2.5 exposure at high concentrations, or between 12 and 13.9 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3), was tied to a 16% increased risk of dying from heart disease and a 10% increased risk of experiencing a heart attack—officially known as acute myocardial infarction—compared with exposure to concentrations under 8 μg/m3.
"We found strong evidence that neighborhood matters when it comes to exposures to this type of air pollution," noted study co-author and Kaiser research scientist Stephen Van Den Eeden. "The strongest association between exposure to air pollution and risk of cardiovascular events in our study was seen in people who live in low socioeconomic areas, where there is often more industry, busier streets, and more highways."
According to Alexeeff, "Our work has the potential to play an important role in ongoing national conversations led by the Environmental Protection Agency on whether—and how much—to tighten air quality standards to protect the public from pollution's effects."
\u201cCan you take 2 minutes to help amplify the voice of our @ecomadres_ program and ask the @EPA to strengthen the rules affecting particle pollution? You will find the link at the bottom of this blog post:\nhttps://t.co/1fePVQHTAZ\nPetitions DO matter!\n#CleanAir4Kids #EPA #NAAQS\u201d— CleanAirMoms_IA #ClimateActionNow (@CleanAirMoms_IA #ClimateActionNow) 1677257326
The EPA in January proposed strengthening the annual public health standard for PM2.5 from 12 μg/m3 to 9-10 μg/m3 but is currently accepting public comment on a range of 8-11 μg/m3. The pending rule notably would not change the PM2.5 standards for exposure over a 24-hour period and for public welfare; it would also keep current standards for larger particles known as PM10.
As Common Dreams reported, in response to the plan, Earthjustice attorney Seth Johnson said last month that "though aspects of EPA's proposal would somewhat strengthen important public health protections, EPA is not living up to the ambitions of this administration to follow the science, protect public health, and advance environmental justice."
Alexeeff said Friday that "our study clearly adds to the evidence that the current regulatory standards are not sufficient to protect the public."
"Our findings support the EPA's analysis that lowering the standard to at least 10 μg/m3 is needed to protect the public," the researcher added. "Our findings also suggest that lowering the standard to 8 μg/m3 may be needed to reduce the risk of heart attacks."
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