New Delhi is no longer the world’s most polluted city, but India continues to afflicted by air pollution, being home to four of the 10 cities with the worst air pollution levels, according to new data from the World Health Organisation. According to the report Delhi may not be the most polluted city in terms of PM 10, but if we consider PM 2.5 then Delhi will appear or some other city will appear.
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Presently, Zabol in Iran has been registered as the worst polluted city in the world. “We are responding to action but the levels are still very high in the city, it only shows that action has to be sustained to meet clean targets”, Anumita Roy Chowdhury, director of the Centre for Science and Environment told The Times of India.
The WHO admitted that numerous world’s most polluted cities do not have a monitoring system and were not included in its ranking. And New Delhi was the survey’s ninth worst city, with an annual average PM2.5 measurement of 122.
The WHO’s urban air quality database released on Thursday now ranks Delhi 11th among 3,000 cities in 103 countries in terms of PM 2.5 (fine, particulate pollution) and 25th in terms of PM 10 (coarse pollution particles) levels.
Even the National Air Quality Index (NAQI) data of 2015 shows that pollution level in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Patna, Agra and Kanpur, exceed the toxic levels in Beijing and other Chinese cities.
Vivek Chattopadhyay, program manager at CSE’s Air Pollution Control Unit said, “See, the point is that if you add more cities, then always the name of the cities will keep changing this is relative”. Nigeria’s Onitsha had the highest PM10 levels at 594.
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Over 80 percent of people who live in cities worldwide breathe polluted air, increasing their risk of lung cancer and other life-threatening diseases, the report revealed. Our fossil fuel consumption has increased since then. “That’s a welcome solution but we need an action plan now and will have to move away from a fossil fuel dependent economy”, said Sunil Dahiya, campaigner with Greenpeace India.
