The top 10 countries with polluted air

[mr friendly guy]

Hint - its not China despite the propaganda pieces like this example of journalistic excellence (which has since been edited out by TIME).

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-08/1 ... ir/5438872

Air pollution: 10 countries with the world's dirtiest air
By Natalie Whiting
Updated 2 hours 34 minutes ago

Related Story: India rejects WHO findings on world's dirtiest airRelated Story: Millions die from air pollution: WHOMap: Pakistan
Almost 90 per cent of people living in the world's cities are being exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution, according to a damning report into outdoor air quality from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The database examined air pollution levels in 1600 cities across 91 countries. It found only 12 per cent of people were living in cities that complied with WHO air quality guideline levels.

The report was more extensive than a similar database released by the WHO in 2011 and has found air quality has deteriorated in that time.

Outdoor air pollution killed 3.7 million people in 2012 and WHO says it is now the world's largest single environmental health risk.

Delhi topped the list of cities with the highest level of air pollution.

Despite extensive coverage of the pollution problems in Beijing, the city came in at number 77 on the list. Among the countries, China was ranked 14th.

The WHO says the Chinese data provided to them was from 2010, but Beijing's city government began publishing hourly PM2.5 data in January 2012.

The WHO database examined the concentration of fine particulate pollution of 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter (PM2.5) and of particulate pollution of 10 micrometers or less in diameter (PM10).

The concentration of air pollution is measured in micrograms per cubic meter of air (ug/m3). PM2.5 is considered the best indicator of assessing health impacts from air pollution. WHO says there is no safe level of PM2.5 pollution.

Here are the 10 countries with the highest levels of air pollution:

1. Pakistan
AVERAGE PM2.5 POLLUTION: 101 ug/m3

AVERAGE PM10 POLLUTION: 282 ug/m3

YEAR OF DATA: 2010

Pakistan has a population of almost 180 million people and a life expectancy of 66. It is part of the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean region and ranked as low to middle income.

Pakistan's major industries include mining, manufacturing and fuel extraction.

The Pakistani city with the highest pollution levels was Karachi, which had a PM2.5 of 117 ug/m3. It came in at number five in the list of cities with the worst levels of air pollution. Peswar (111 ug/m3) and Rawalpindi (107 ug/m3) came in at 6th and 7th respectively.

2. Qatar
AVERAGE PM2.5 POLLUTION: 92 ug/m3

AVERAGE PM10 POLLUTION: 165 ug/m3

YEAR OF DATA: 2012

More than 2 million people live in Qatar and the life expectancy is 78. It is part of the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean region and ranked as high income. The country's major industry is oil production.

The air in the country's capital, Doha, was ranked 12th most polluted, with a PM2.5 of 93 ug/m3. Al Wakrah came in at number 25 with 85 ug/m3.

3. Afghanistan
AVERAGE PM2.5 POLLUTION: 84 ug/m3

AVERAGE PM10 POLLUTION: 268 ug/m3

YEAR OF DATA: 2009

Afghanistan has a population of almost 30 million and a life expectancy of 61. It is part of the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean region and ranked as low to middle income. Some of its major industries include agriculture and textiles.

Its capital Kabul was ranked 22nd, with a PM2.5 pollution rate of 86 ug/m3.

4. Bangladesh
AVERAGE PM2.5 POLLUTION: 79 ug/m3


Photo: A busy street in Dhaka, Bangladesh (AFP: Munir uz Zaman)
AVERAGE PM10 POLLUTION: 163 ug/m3

YEAR OF DATA: 2013

Bangladesh has a population of almost 155 million people and a life expectancy of 69. It is part of the WHO's South East Asia region. Its biggest industries include manufacturing and agriculture.

The Bangladeshi city with the highest air pollution rate was Narayonganj with a PM2.5 pollution rate of 89 ug/m3. It came in at number 17. Gazipur had a rate of 87 ug/m3 and was ranked 21st. Dhaka was 23rd with 86 ug/m3.

5. Iran
AVERAGE PM2.5 POLLUTION: 76 ug/m3

AVERAGE PM10 POLLUTION: 127 ug/m3

YEAR OF DATA: 2010

Iran has a population of more than 76 million people and a life expectancy of 74. It is part of the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean region and ranked as low to middle income. Some of the country's major industries include oil and gas production, automotive and construction.

Iran's city with highest level of air pollution was Khoramabad with a PM2.5 average of 102 ug/m3. It was ranked 8th in a list of city’s with high air pollution.

6. Egypt
AVERAGE PM2.5 POLLUTION: 74 ug/m3

Deaths caused by outdoor air pollution
•Ischaemic heart disease (40 per cent)
•Stroke (40 per cent)
•Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (11 per cent)
•Lung cancer (6 per cent)
•Acute lower respiratory infections in children (3 per cent)
Source: World Health Organisation
AVERAGE PM10 POLLUTION: 136 ug/m3

YEAR OF DATA: 2011

Egypt has a population of more than 80 million people and a life expectancy of 71. It is part of the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean region and ranked as low to middle income. Some of its major industries include agriculture, textiles and oil production.

The Delta cities came in at number 30 on the list of highest air pollution, with a PM2.5 rate of 76 ug/m3. Cairo was ranked 34th with 73 ug/m3.

7. Mongolia
AVERAGE PM2.5 POLLUTION: 64 ug/m3

AVERAGE PM10 POLLUTION: 140 ug/m3

YEAR OF DATA: 2009/10

With a population of more than 2.7 million people, life expectancy in Mongolia is 67. It is part of the WHO's Western Pacific region and ranked as low to middle income. Some of its major industries include construction, mining and oil production.

Darkham came in at number 26 of cities with the highest air pollution, with a PM2.5 rate of 80 ug/m3.

8. United Arab Emirates

Photo: The skyline of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. (Marwan Naamani: AFP)
AVERAGE PM2.5 POLLUTION: 61 ug/m3

AVERAGE PM10 POLLUTION: 161 ug/m3

YEAR OF DATA: 2011

The population of the United Arab Emirates is more than 9 million and the life expectancy is 77. It is part of the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean region and ranked as high income. Some of its major industries include oil production, textiles and agriculture.

Al Gharbia - Biya Zayed was rated 52nd on the list of cities with high air pollution, with a PM2.5 rate of 64 ug/m3.

9. India
AVERAGE PM2.5 POLLUTION: 59 ug/m3

AVERAGE PM10 POLLUTION: 134 ug/m3

YEAR OF DATA: 2009/11

India has a population of 1.2 billion. The life expectancy is 66. It is part of the WHO's South East Asia region. Its major industries include agriculture, services, retail and mining.

Six of the top 10 cities with high air pollution were from India. Delhi had the highest rate of air pollution in the world, with a PM2.5 rate of 153 ug/m3.

Patna came in 2nd (149 ug/m3) Gwalior is 3rd (144 ug/m3)and Raipur 4th (134 ug/m3).

Coming in at number 9 is Ahmedabad (100 ug/m3) and 10th is Lucknow (96 ug/m3).


Photo: Indian commuters wait for a bus early on a polluted morning in New Delhi. (AFP: Prakash Singh: file)

10. Bahrain
AVERAGE PM2.5 POLLUTION: 57 ug/m3

AVERAGE PM10 POLLUTION: 254 ug/m3

YEAR OF DATA: 2012

The population of Bahrain is 1.3 million and the life expectancy is 77. It is part of the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean region and ranked as high income. Some of its major industries include services, banking, retail and tourism.

With a PM2.5 rate of 66 ug/m3, Hamad Town came in at 51st on the list of cities with the highest air pollution.

Cities with the worse pollution

Cities with the worst air pollution
1.Delhi, India
2.Patna, India
3.Gwalior, India
4.Raipur, India
5.Karachi, Pakistan
6.Peshwar, Pakistan
7.Rawalpindi, Pakistan
8.Khoramabad, Iran
9.Ahmedabad, India
10.Lucknow, India
Source: World Health Organisation

[Metahive]

I spend a year in Beijing and the worst thing I experienced was the rotten quality of the air (well that and the annoying internet censorship). I really shudder at the thought that there are still ten countries that manage to be worse than that.

[mr friendly guy]

Well actually 76 cities which are worse than Beijing.

[Metahive]

Well actually 76 cities which are worse than Beijing.

When my plane took off from Beijing airport, there was this giant dome of dirty yellowish-brown pollution that covered the city underneath (it hadn't rained in weeks). I wonder how those other cities would look.

[Kitsune]

6/10 of the worst cities are in India

[K. A. Pital]

Beijing seemed to be as polluted as a typical Russian industrial town. When we were there, we though it's a suitably nice place. Of course it is not as clean and pristine as the First World towns now, but it is more or less acceptable. Perhaps those were the clean days, but I've been to Beijing on more than one occasion.

[LaCroix]

I think this country chart is a bit biased. If a country contains or borders a desert, a lot of fine dust in the air can't be avoided... It's not as if they were in any way responsible for that.

[Irbis]

6/10 of the worst cities are in India

When you consider Pakistan was India until relatively recently, 9/10. Yet another example of glorious British Empire legacy.

I wonder though how some of these countries manage to be so polluted. IIRC they don't have that much industry, is it because of pollution from neighbours, dirty small sources of smoke, or did something changed in recent years?

[LaCroix]

6/10 of the worst cities are in India

When you consider Pakistan was India until relatively recently, 9/10. Yet another example of glorious British Empire legacy.

I wonder though how some of these countries manage to be so polluted. IIRC they don't have that much industry, is it because of pollution from neighbours, dirty small sources of smoke, or did something changed in recent years?

As far as I know it's mostly wood burning, and unpaved/badly paved/very dirty roads in combination with cars. These two things can generate an almost unbelieveable amount of dust in the air. Now add industry and the car emissions and you have a smog nightmare.

[Spoonist]

Yes, lots and lots of it is cooking/heating.
But LaCroix wood is a luxury to the really really poor in New Delhi, they are cooking over burning trash. Usually a mix of paper and plastics. There is even a living to make by making bricks of burnable trash which you sell.

Add to that the Hindu tradition of burning offerings etc.

[Beowulf]

The Indus valley often has an inversion in place, which traps particulates near the surface. This results in pollution not going away. Thus, it's constantly 2-4 miles in vis out there.

[madd0ct0r]

aha!

Thesis to the rescue! The India Pakistan Bangladesh trio (and probably) some of the other countries too are very poor, and have a low electrification rate. If you want lunch, you might be cooking on gas, but you'll definetly be cooking on some sort of fire.

The poverty is important because of the fuel ladder concept, as you get richer you switch to more convenient and efficient fuels. They tend to be more concentrated and burn hotter. A Traditional stove bruning dried dung in Bangladesh is about 11% effecient, upgrade to wood you hit 14%, upgrade again to char briquette you get to 16.4% and the LPG stove the rich neighbour has? 57% effecient.
Bottom line is, poor people can only afford poor fuels, and thus they end up burning more stuff.

Those poor fuels are also a lot less energy dense, so it's much harder to maintain a concentrated intense heat. It's one thing on a barbecue with coals, imagine trying to get the same effect with dried leaves. Those fires burn cooler, and create a lot more soot and particulate matter. Combine that with intense popualtion density in the cities, everyone needs to cook lunch and decent fuel becomes quite expensive, so people will use what they can get

[Ralin]

I spend a year in Beijing and the worst thing I experienced was the rotten quality of the air (well that and the annoying internet censorship). I really shudder at the thought that there are still ten countries that manage to be worse than that.

Wuss.

Try a year in Harbin.

Seriously though, there are places in China with way worse air than Beijing. Though I've heard Beijing itself is improving.

I think this country chart is a bit biased. If a country contains or borders a desert, a lot of fine dust in the air can't be avoided... It's not as if they were in any way responsible for that.

Isn't a fair amount of the crap in the air in Beijing from the Gobi Desert?

[montypython]

I think this country chart is a bit biased. If a country contains or borders a desert, a lot of fine dust in the air can't be avoided... It's not as if they were in any way responsible for that.

Isn't a fair amount of the crap in the air in Beijing from the Gobi Desert?

It is, and one of the major elements in reducing those desert particulates involves reforestation along the region northwest of Beijing.

[Dalton]

Jeez. I thought New York City had problems with air quality, but that's just the hobo pee. I guess being on an island in the Atlantic has its advantages.

[mr friendly guy]

Since we are on the business of air pollution, here is what Bloomberg have said
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-3 ... ing-s.html

London’s Dirty Secret: Pollution Worse Than Beijing’s
By Alex Morales May 31, 2014 7:01 AM GMT+0800

London has a dirty secret.

Levels of the harmful air pollutant nitrogen dioxide at a city-center monitoring station are the highest in Europe. Concentrations are greater even than in Beijing, where expatriates have dubbed the city’s smog the “airpocalypse.”

It’s the law of unintended consequences at work. European Union efforts to fight climate change favored diesel fuel over gasoline because it emits less carbon dioxide, or CO2. However, diesel’s contaminants have swamped benefits from measures that include a toll drivers pay to enter central London, a thriving bike-hire program and growing public-transport network.

“Successive governments knew more than 10 years ago that diesel was producing all these harmful pollutants, but they myopically plowed on with their CO2 agenda,” said Simon Birkett, founder of Clean Air in London, a nonprofit group. “It’s been a catastrophe for air pollution, and that’s not too strong a word. It’s a public-health catastrophe.”

Tiny particles called PM2.5s probably killed 3,389 people in London in 2010, the government agency Public Health England said in April. Like nitrogen dioxide, or NO2, they come from diesel combustion. Because the pollutants are found together, it’s hard to identify deaths attributable only to NO2, said Jeremy Langrish, a clinical lecturer in cardiology at the University of Edinburgh.

“Exposure to air pollution is associated with increases in deaths from cardiovascular disease such as heart attacks and strokes,” Langrish said. “It’s associated with respiratory problems like asthma.”

The World Health Organization says NO2 can inflame the airways and worsen bronchitis in children.

Europe’s Problem

London isn’t alone in having bad air in Europe, where 301 sites breached the EU’s NO2 limits in 2012, including seven in the British capital. Paris, Rome, Athens, Madrid, Brussels and Berlin also had places that exceeded the ceiling. The second and third-worst sites among 1,513 monitoring stations were both in Stuttgart after London’s Marylebone Road.

“Nitrogen dioxide is a problem that you get in all big cities with a lot of traffic,” said Alberto Gonzalez Ortiz, project manager for air quality at the European Environment Agency, which is based in Copenhagen. “In many cases it’s gotten worse because of the new fleets of diesel cars.”

The EU limits NO2 to a maximum of 40 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The concentration on Marylebone Road, a stone’s throw from Regent’s Park, was almost 94 micrograms in 2012, according to the most recent data from the EEA.

The level for the site last year was 81 micrograms, and it’s averaging 83 micrograms this year, according to King’s College London. In 1998, when the King’s College data begins, it was 92. That’s about the time the switch to diesel started.

Beijing’s Problem

In contrast, Beijing had a concentration of 56 micrograms last year, according to China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection. The Chinese capital has a worse problem with other pollutants, registering almost triple the level of PM10 particles (bigger than PM2.5s) as on Marylebone Road.

London’s air has improved since the “pea-souper” fogs in the 1800s and 1900s. In 1952, the so-called Great Smog killed 4,000 people. East Londoners couldn’t see their feet through a choking blanket of smoke caused when cold air trapped industrial emissions and coal fumes. That led to passage of a clean-air law in 1956, seven years before the U.S. Clean Air Act.

Air pollution and particulates are “invisible and there isn’t the same pressure on politicians” as in the 1950s, said Joan Walley, an opposition Labour Party lawmaker who leads the Parliament’s cross-party Environmental Audit Committee. “It requires a long-term strategy.”

Parliamentary Inquiry

Walley’s committee began an inquiry on May 2 to assess government efforts to improve air quality, calling for written submissions by June 5.

While the government blamed an April spike in pollution on dust from the Sahara alongside domestic emissions and particles from continental Europe, the prevailing winds mean London typically exports its own problem.

“It’s not rocket science to figure out that we contribute mostly on westerly winds to our neighbors,” said Martin Williams, professor of air quality at Kings College.

Europe-wide policy triggered the problem. The “dieselisation” of London’s cars began with an agreement between car manufacturers and the EU in 1998 that aimed to lower the average CO2 emissions of new vehicles. Because of diesel’s greater fuel economy, it increased in favor.

The European Commission, the EU regulatory arm, “is and always has been technologically neutral,” said Joe Hennon, a spokesman. “It does not favor diesel over petrol-powered cars. How to achieve CO2 reductions is up to member states.”

EU Deadline

EU rules enforced since 2000 allowed diesel cars to spew more than three times the amount of oxides of nitrogen including NO2 as those using gasoline. New rules that took effect in September narrow that gap.

“The challenge is much greater that we had thought just a few years ago,” said Matthew Pencharz, environment and energy adviser to London Mayor Boris Johnson. “A lot of that is due to a well-meant EU policy that failed. We’re stuck now with these diesel cars -- about half our cars are diesel, whereas 10, 15 years ago, it was lower than 10 percent.”

The U.K. Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in 2011 estimated it would take London until 2025 to comply with the 2010 rules. The government didn’t ask for an extension to comply because doing so comes with a requirement to show it was possible by 2015.

For Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett, the solution is simple: Get people out of their cars.

“Fifty-six percent of journeys we make in Britain are less than 5 miles,” Bennett said in an interview. “If you turn a significant percentage of those into walking and cycling journeys, then you’ve made huge progress.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net James Hertling

[montypython]

Not surprised by the London report, having done air sampling work in the past diesel emissions are very underrated in terms of health effects, especially wrt to things like asthma.

[Vejut]

Interestingly, those increased regulations they're talking about on diesel (EU Stage III/IV, which are similar to, but not the same as, the most recent EPA Tier 4 standards) have actually been being brought in slowly since about 2006-7. Things like this though probably explains why the EU standards actually have a proportionately smaller particulate matter standard, while the EPA's been focusing more on NOx. Either way, its caused a good bit of change to the engines--"Diesel exhaust fluid" isn't just a joke like 15 feet of shoreline anymore, and if you were paying attention a few years ago in 2007, you may recall the ford jet tail pipes from when they didn't quite get their particulate filters right. Just kinda shows how much more diesels you're running when you get that little reduction in PM when the regulatory max is only 1/16th what it was 10 years ago.