Only seven countries meet the international air quality standardwith deadly air pollution worsening in places due to the recovery in economic activity and the toxic effects of wildfire smoke, a new report says.

Of the 134 countries and territories surveyed, only seven – Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland, Mauritius and New Zealand – met the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline threshold. for the limit of microscopic suspended particles emitted by cars, trucks and industrial processes.

The vast majority of countries do not meet this standard for PM2.5, a type of tiny speck of soot smaller than the width of a human hair that when inhaled can cause a myriad of health problems and deaths, with the risk of serious effects on humans.

According to report by IQAir, a Swiss air quality organization that draws data from more than 30,000 monitoring stations around the world.

While air worldwide is generally much cleaner than it has been for most of the past centurythere are still places where pollution levels are particularly dangerous.

The most polluted country, Pakistanhas PM2.5 levels more than 14 times higher than WHO standards, according to the IQAir report, with India, Tajikistan and Burkina Faso the next most polluted countries.

But even in rich and rapidly developing countries, progress in curbing air pollution is under threat.

Canadalong considered to have the cleanest air in the Western world, became the worst for PM2.5 last year due to record fires that ravaged the country, spewing toxic radiation across the country and into the US.

In China, meanwhile, improvements in air quality were complicated last year by the recovery in economic activity in the wake of the Covid-1 pandemic9, with the report finding a 6.5% increase in PM2.5 levels.

“Unfortunately things have gone backwards”said Glory Dolphin Hammes, its CEO IQAir in North America.

“The science is pretty clear about the effects of air pollution and yet we are so used to having a level of pollution that is too high to be healthy. We’re not making adjustments fast enough.”

Air pollution is estimated to kill around 7 million people annually worldwide – more than AIDS and malaria combined – and this burden is most felt in developing countries that rely on particularly dirty fuels for indoor heating, light and cooking.

The most polluted urban area in the world last year was Begusarai in India, according to IQAir’s sixth annual report, with India home to the four most polluted cities in the world. However, much of the developing world, particularly African countries, lacks reliable air quality measurements.

WHO lowers guidelines for ‘safe’ PM2.5 levels in 2021 at five micrograms per cubic meter and by this measure many countries, such as those in Europe that have significantly cleaned their air in the last 20 years, fall short.

But even she the strictest guideline may not fully cover the risk of insidious air pollution.

Research released by American scientists last month found that there is no safe level of PM2.5, with even the smallest exposures linked to increased hospitalizations for conditions such as heart disease and asthma.

Hames said that countries should act to make their cities more walkable and become less dependent on cars, modify forestry practices to limit the impact of wildfire smoke, and move faster to adopt clean energy instead of fossil fuels.

“We share the atmospheric envelope with everyone else in the world and we have to make sure we don’t do things that harm those elsewhere.”he said.

Aidan Farrow, senior air quality scientist at Greenpeace International, said that better monitoring of air quality is also required.

“In 2023 air pollution remained a global health disasterIQAir’s global dataset provides an important reminder of the injustices that arise and the need to implement the many solutions that exist to this problem“, he emphasized.