According to A New Report, These Are The Best and Worst Places for Air Quality in 2021.

According to a new report, global air pollution reached unhealthy levels in 2021.

According to the report by IQAir, a company that monitors global air quality, average annual air pollution in every country — and 97% of cities — exceeded the World Health Organization's air quality guidelines, which were designed to help governments craft regulations to protect public health.

Only 222 of the 6,475 cities studied had average air quality that met WHO standards. The French territory of New Caledonia, as well as the US territories of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, were found to have met WHO guidelines.

India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh had the worst air pollution, exceeding the guidelines by at least ten times.

The Scandinavian countries, Australia, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom were among the best for air quality, with average levels exceeding guidelines by 1 to 2 times.

IQAir discovered that air pollution in the United States exceeded WHO guidelines by 2 to 3 times.

"This report emphasizes the need for governments around the world to help reduce global air pollution," IQAir North America CEO Glory Dolphin Hammes told CNN. "(Fine particulate matter) kills far too many people every year, and governments must set more stringent national air quality standards and investigate better foreign policies that promote better air quality."

It is the first major global air quality report based on the World Health Organization's new annual air pollution guidelines, which will be updated in September 2021. The new guidelines reduced the acceptable fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) concentration from 10 to 5 micrograms per cubic meter.

PM 2.5 is the smallest pollutant, but it is also one of the most dangerous. When inhaled, it penetrates deep into lung tissue and enters the bloodstream. It is emitted by sources such as the combustion of fossil fuels, dust storms, and wildfires, and has been linked to a variety of health problems such as asthma, heart disease, and other respiratory illnesses.

Every year, air pollution kills millions of people. According to WHO, fine particulate matter was responsible for approximately 4.2 million premature deaths in 2016. WHO discovered that if the 2021 guidelines had been followed that year, there could have been nearly 3.3 million fewer pollution-related deaths.

IQAir looked at pollution monitoring stations in 6,475 cities spread across 117 countries, regions, and territories.

In the United States, air pollution increased in 2021 compared to 2020. Despite a 6% decrease compared to 2020, Los Angeles air remained the most polluted of the more than 2,400 US cities studied. According to the report, pollution levels in Atlanta and Minneapolis increased significantly.

"The (United States') reliance on fossil fuels, increasing wildfire severity, and varying Clean Air Act enforcement from administration to administration have all contributed to U.S. air pollution," the authors wrote.

According to the researchers, the main sources of pollution in the United States were fossil-fuel-powered transportation, energy production, and wildfires, which wreaked havoc on the country's most vulnerable and marginalized communities.

"We are heavily reliant on fossil fuels, particularly in transportation," said Hammes, who lives just outside of Los Angeles. "We can act smartly with zero emissions on this, but we're not doing it." And this is having a devastating effect on the air pollution in major cities."

Wildfires fueled by climate change played a significant role in lowering air quality in the United States in 2021. The authors cited the Caldor and Dixie fires in California, as well as the Bootleg Fire in Oregon, which sent smoke all the way to the East Coast in July.

China, which has some of the worst air pollution, showed improved air quality in 2021. More than half of the Chinese cities studied in the report experienced lower levels of air pollution than the previous year. According to the report, the capital city of Beijing maintained a five-year trend of improved air quality, owing to a policy-driven reduction of polluting industries in the city.

The report also discovered that the Amazon Rainforest, the world's main defender against climate change, emitted more carbon dioxide than it absorbed last year. Deforestation and wildfires have jeopardized the critical ecosystem, polluted the air, and exacerbated climate change.

"This is all part of the equation that will or is leading to global warming," Hammes explained.

The report also revealed some inequalities: monitoring stations are still scarce in some developing countries in Africa, South America, and the Middle East, resulting in a lack of data on air quality in those areas.

"Without that data, you're really in the dark," Hammes said.

The African country of Chad was included in the report for the first time, according to Hammes, due to an improvement in its monitoring network. According to IQAir, the country's air pollution was the second-worst in the world last year, trailing only Bangladesh.

Tarik Benmarhnia, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography climate change epidemiologist who has studied the health effects of wildfire smoke, also noted that relying solely on monitoring stations can lead to gaps in these reports.

"I think it's fantastic that they relied on different networks rather than just government sources," Benmarhnia, who was not involved in this report, told CNN. "However, many regions lack sufficient stations, and alternative techniques are available."

In its 2021 report, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that, in addition to slowing the rate of global warming, reducing the use of fossil fuels would improve air quality and public health.

According to Hammes, the IQAir report is yet another reason for the world to transition away from fossil fuels.

"We have the report, we can read it, we can internalize it, and we can really devote ourselves to action," she explained. "There must be a significant shift toward renewable energy." We need to take drastic measures to stem the tide of global warming; otherwise, the impact and train we're on will be irreversible."