While many reports have indeed shown that
Now, a new report confirms these lamentable results once again. IQAir's newly published 2022
While there was a slight overall improvement over 2021 levels, our current average PM2.5 concentration of 53.3 micrograms/cubic metre still remains a catastrophic ten times over the
While New Delhi has held the title of the most polluted capital in the world for a while now, the 2022 report shows a clear dethroning. The country's capital was pushed to second place, after Chad's N'Djamena, with a minuscule difference of only 0.6 micrograms per cubic metre (89.1 versus 89.7).
As for our metro cities, there have been ups and downs since last year. While average PM2.5 levels improved by 4.2 points in Delhi, the same improvement cannot be seen in other cities. PM2.5 levels remained the same in Kolkata as of 2021, while it increased by 0.3, 3, 2.5 and 0.1 points in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai, respectively.
In fact, according to current rankings on the webpage, 39 Indian cities dominate the top 50 spots among the world's most polluted cities. Among the top ten, we find Rajasthan's Bhiwadi (#3), Delhi (#4), Bihar's Darbhanga (#6) and Asopur (#7), followed by the all-too-familiar New Delhi (#9) and Patna (#10).
The report has clearly outlined that South Asia (including India) has a pollution problem, being home to eight of the ten most polluted cities in the world. Of the 15 most polluted cities in this region, 12 were from India. This is clearly a problem that needs prompt mitigation, considering air pollution is the second biggest risk factor for diseases based on the 2019 Global Burden of Disease report, annually slashing $150 billion dollars from our economy.
As a special note, the report outlines that we need a better system to track our air pollution progress.
"A 2021 study shows that global and regional estimates agree on the leading sources of air pollution in India, but they vary significantly from in terms of uncertainty associated with these estimations," the report reads.
And this is true. We know that the transportation, power generation, and agriculture sectors contribute significantly to PM2.5 emissions. But delineating appropriate reduction measures requires knowing which sectors require more attention, which can only be determined once we know their exact emission contributions.
"A comprehensive national emission database is critical in determining sectoral emission reductions needed to meet the targeted 40 percent reduction in particulate concentrations by 2026 outlined in the