According to air quality tracker “IQAir”, air pollution continues to present one of the biggest health hazards to people across the world.

Key Points

• Air Pollution contributes to around 7 million premature deaths per annum. Out of these deaths, 600000 are children.
• Air pollution is also estimated to cost global economy upwards of $2.9 trillion each year because of fossil fuel emissions alone.
• It will also contrib­ute to a range of severe environmental probl­ems.

How Air Quality is determined?

Air quality is determined by looking after the levels of air pollut­ants like PM2.5, PM10, ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide.

IQAir Data

• According to IQAir Data, India had 46 of the world’s 100 most polluted cities in 2020. India is followed by China (with 42 cities), Pakistan (with 6 cities), Bangladesh (with 4 cities), Indonesia (with 1 city), and Thailand (with 1 city).
• All these cities had PM2.5 air-quality rating of more than 50.
• India accounts for 9 of the top 10 most polluted cities worldwide.
• In 2020, Hotan city in China’s Xinjiang province had the worst average air quality with 110.2.

About IQAir

IQAir is a Swiss air quality technology company. It specializes in protection against airborne pollutants, air cleaning products and developing air quality monitoring. It also operates AirVisual, which is a real-time air quality information platform. It was founded 1963 by Manfred and Klaus Hammes.