Three South Asian nations have the most polluted air quality in the world in 2023, according to a new report, while all but one of the 100 cities with the worst air pollution were located in Asia.
For the fifth year in a row, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India continued to have particle levels at least
10 times higher than World Health Organization standards, according to IQAir, a tech firm that tracks air quality worldwide, pointing to dangerous smog levels that violate people’s right to life and a clean and safe environment.
In 2022, the United Nations General Assembly
adopted a historic resolution declaring that everyone on the planet had a right to a healthy environment, including clean air.
The report, which studied PM2.5 data from 7,800 cities. PM2.5 are fine particulate matter that are also considered the most most damaging air pollutants, able to penetrate deep into lungs and cause several diseases.
Other
studies have also shown that air pollution in Asia is pervasive, with 92 percent of Asia and the Pacific’s population – approximately 4 billion people – estimated to be exposed to threatening levels of air pollution.
South Asia has stood out as a global hotspot for polluted air partly because of some practices that are
unique to the region, such as burning of agricultural waste, solid fuel combustion for cooking and heating, and human cremation.
For instance, 38 percent of the pollution in New Delhi last year was caused by stubble burning – a method of clearing fields by burning residual rice crop.
Air pollution from South Asian countries’ inability to curb emissions also exacerbates other problems brought on by the climate crisis, such as increasing water scarcity, which is
particularly dire in the region. Pollutants emitted into the atmosphere not only degrade air quality, but also
settle on the surface of water bodies, contaminating them and depriving millions of drinkable water.
In response to the findings, International's Climate Adviser Ann Harrison has called on the three South Asian countries to
step up their efforts to create a "cross-border pollution action plan.”
“This is essential to help safeguard public health and human rights in countries already suffering climate change induced harms that are set to worsen,” Harrison said.