New Delhi Is World’s Most Polluted City For The Third Year In A Row

Main image via Reuters + The Indian Express
 
Climate change is a big conversation that has been going for a long time now.
 
While some of us are doing all we can to reduce our carbon footprint, there are still many who have a long way to go, especially in cities around the world.
 
Recently, an annual report identified the most polluted cities in the world and the top spot goes to New Delhi, again for the third year in a row.

via GIPHY

IQ Air, a Swiss group that measures air quality levels based on the concentration of lung-damaging airborne particles known as PM2.5, gathered data for 106 countries and found that India was home to 35 of the world’s 50 most polluted cities.
 
The findings of IQ Air’s 2020 World Air Quality Report were based on the country’s annual average of particulate matter PM2.5, airborne particles with less than 2.5 microns n diameter.
 
Prolonged exposure to PM2.5 can lead to deadly diseases including cancer and cardiac problems.

The report found that New Delhi’s average annual concentration of PM2.5 in a cubic meter of air in 2020 was at 84.1, more than double the level of Beijing, which averaged at 37.5 during the year – making it the 14^th most polluted city in the world.
 
According to a recent study by Greenpeace Southeast Asia Analysis and IQ Air, an estimated 54,000 premature deaths were caused by air pollution in New Delhi in 2020.
 
Though the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown imposed last year may have seen an 11% reduction in the annual average of PM2.5 levels, India still emerged as the world’s third most polluted country after Bangladesh and Pakistan.
 
“Air pollution in India is still dangerously high,” the report shared.

The report also noted that South Asia endured some of the world’s worst air quality on record in 2020.
 
Despite breathing some of the cleanest air on record in the summer, the 20 million residents of New Delhi had to battle toxic air in winter, following a sharp increase in farm fire incidents in the neighbouring state of Punjab.
 
The stubble burning of crop peaked in New Delhi and caused the PM2.5 levels to average at 144 micrograms per cubic metre in November and 157 micrograms per cubic metre in December.
 
The levels exceeded the World Health Organisation’s annual exposure guideline by more than 14 times, the report found.

Pollution is constantly on the rise these days and we must do all we can to minimise our carbon footprint.
 
We hope countries around the world will start taking climate change seriously for our future and future generations.