NEW DELHI – The Indian city of New Delhi is ‘the pollution capital of the world’, according to IQAir.
IQAir is a Swiss group that measures air quality levels based on the concentration of lung-damaging airborne particles known as PM2.5 which may also result in cancer.
According to IQAir’s 2020 World Air Quality Report, India was home to 35 of the world’s 50 most polluted cities, in comparison to gathered data for 106 countries.
Air pollution caused an estimated 54,000 premature deaths in New Delhi in 2020, according to a recent study by Greenpeace Southeast Asia Analysis and IQAir.
Despite an 11% reduction in the annual average of PM2.5 levels due to nationwide coronavirus lockdown curbs imposed last year, “Air pollution in India is still dangerously high,” the report said.
In 2020, South Asia endured some of the world’s worst air quality on record, it said.
Last year, due to the lockdown curbs in summer, Delhi’s 20 million residents breathed some of the cleanest air on record, but battled toxic air in winter following a sharp increase in farm fire incidents in the neighbouring state of Punjab.
As the burning of crop stubble peaked, Delhi’s PM2.5 levels averaged 144 micrograms per cubic metre in November and 157 micrograms per cubic metre in December, exceeding the World Health Organisation’s annual exposure guideline by more than 14 times, it said.
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