Study: Every single country is failing the WHO’s new air quality standards
No country in the world met the new air quality standards established in September by the World Health Organization, or WHO, according to a new survey that analyzed 117 countries’ air last year.
Even within those countries, almost every city failed to meet the standards. The study, which looked at the real-time air quality of 6,475 cities, found that just 222 of them — less than 3.5 percent — had an average air quality reading that met the WHO’s standard. Nearly 100 cities experienced pollution levels that were ten times higher than the recommended level, according to IQAir, the Swiss pollution technology company that conducted the survey.
It’s the first global air quality report based on the WHO’s new pollution guidelines, which suggest that average annual readings of hazardous fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, not exceed 5 micrograms per …