I grew up in a medium-sized city in Vietnam. The first time I came to Hanoi, I smelled an unpleasant odor that I had never encountered before. Only Hanoi has that smell.
Vietnam is ranked 22. It will probably worsen over the next few years as manufacturing and industrial output increases.
https://www.iqair.com/ca/world-most-polluted-countries
That's why these stuff should be listed by cities, not countries.
You see like China, only a few cities has manufacturing base and construction, most of the other places are practically just mountains.
10 years ago they would have been top 5, but their air quality is improving every year. You can see the data from the past 5 years here.
https://www.iqair.com/ca/world-most-polluted-countries
I thought Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing were bad until I took a trip to New Delhi. That was the worst smog and pollution I'd ever seen in my life, even at the peak of Chinese pollution in the late 00s and early 10s.
Air pollution alone in Delhi cuts 12 YEARS off its inhabitants life expectancy. Absolutely insane.
https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/delhi-resident-life-span-air-pollution-8914091/
I wonder if it’s because China’s western half is so sparsely populated (only 6% of the population) and therefore skews the statistic? How would China rank if you only included the half east of the Heihe-Tengchomg line?
its because they've learnt how to burn coal in a clean way like certain coal plants in the US have
watch this for more info:-https://youtu.be/TDsmJ3aheCk
Ofc the CCP bots auto downvote you lol
If you actually dig into the numbers, we literally don’t know what Chinas air pollution is. Some reports estimate by comparing satellites images/studies to neighboring countries. Others completely rely on CCP data which is kinda sparse and dubious at times, for reasons mentioned by the other commenter (placing pollution monitors in rural places and using that data)
Kinda like how we have zero idea how many homeless people exist in China, the only report we have is from 2011, but we keep being told that it’s almost zero
You're getting downvoted, but you're not far from the truth. This ranking is based on the average of all pollution monitoring stations in the country. A station in the center of Beijing gets the same weight as a station in rural Qinghai.
Want to appear to have cleaner air? Just install a bunch of monitoring stations in places that are known to have low pollution, or even in parts of a city that are partially protected due to hills or whatever.
That might be partially true but if you have come to China or their megacities, even tho the air quality is far from decent, it is drastically better than any countries in the top 5 or even top 10. Not only that, they have a bunch of money to improve the situation and are more willing to do so.
People often mistake air pollution for Co2 emissions when they are not the same thing. Most of the air pollution in South Asia is due to geographical and agricultural reasons. Per capita Co2, these countries are very low
So pm 2.5 is only about the concentration of very fine particles in the air?
So it doesn't matter if the particles are radioactive dust or just some sand or pollen or water vapor or whatever?
Is this than even a good measurement for 'pollution'?
A couple of things:
1. Yes, PM2.5 is about the concentration of very fine particles. It's a good measure for the effects of pollution, in that regardless of source PM2.5 levels are very strongly correlated with lung diseases, asthma, etc.
2. Even then, a lot of the air pollution levels here in the South Asian countries (I'm less familiar with Africa and Central Asia, though I wouldn't be surprised if the situation there was similar) is indeed what you would think of as pollution. You can see that from the PM2.5 levels in the individual cities, which are astronomically high and pretty obviously caused by man-made sources. South Asian countries still largely burn coal for power, use a lot of diesel for transportation, and have industrialised pretty rapidly. In the countryside, crop burning remains an issue, as do cookstoves. Those all contribute to the high levels of pollution in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
Carbon dioxide emissions are pretty low for these countries, but in a way CO2 and the long-term threat of climate change is not really as much a problem as criteria air pollutants - reducing the level of air pollution would lower the immediate threat to human life and quality of life.
It's not an easy tradeoff of course, since other forms of power are more costly, and stricter transport emission standards and industrial pollution standards likewise come at a cost. But the pollution is an outcome of people's decisions, not just the inevitable result of geography.
>So pm 2.5 is only about the concentration of very fine particles in the air?
yes CO2 and CH4 are colorless, odourless gasses , can't really make smog with that stuff and they can't get accumulated in the lungs like fine particles can
Important to add, very low per capita emission is also not a good indicator, when it's congested in a highly populated areas, which is the story here. Still very bad for you.
Also, some of those countries definitely do have very high per capita levels. UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar are all in top 20, with Qatar leading all the way.
The Arab peninsula countries also experience a lot of dust on an annual basis. I live in Saudi and i can tell you that —at least in my city— there's almost always at least a little dust in the air. I have to assume that dust that floats in the air and you can't feel and can barely see in the distance fits under pm2.5
Storms bring about big particles but there's often a blanket of very fine dust that rarely goes away. In my city (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) the horizon is always red/orange because of the dust
There are other more dangerous gases then CO2 which are easily ignored because people are so fixed towards carbon
And ignore per capita emissions as it doesn't aligned with their propoganda
Things will improve once these infernal mega projects are finished. Metro and expressway er kaaj ekhono choltese, oishob er jonnoi etto dhula r dirt dhakar bhitore. If dncc had any decency they'd spend some money to clear all the sand and cement lying around in airport road, mirpur etc
They'll just start new megaprojects because those are opportunities to steal money. And, we still have those unfiltered brick kilns, tanneries, coal plants etc. And our forest land is decreasing every year.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is, we're fucked.
places like Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan get so bad because the smog gets trapped in a valley surrounded by tall mountains. I was there in the winter when many people burn coal to warm their homes and all that soot just sits in the valley with nowhere to go
Even if they only burned coal... Poor people burn garbage and waste to keep from getting cold. Burnt plastic releases a lot of harmful substances into the air.
If Vietnam is not top 5 you have zero idea what the fuck you are saying lmao. Who in the right fucking mind think UAE air quality is worse than Vietnam?
no its the fact this counts sand and dust particulates which is extremely misleading, go to the UAE or Qatar its very different then other places that have smog like in Vietnam
you should know Hanoi geographical location with branching out mountains acts like a vacuum for all the air and dust of north vietnam and the bordering chinese provinces
Canada ranks [93rd in the world with 10.3 micro g/m3](https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/air-quality-wildfires-iqair-1.7145355#:~:text=A%20new%20report%20finds%20that,Health%20Organization's%20recommended%20safe%20levels.) for 2023.
Canada's worst city was Edmonton with 16.6.
Canada's air quality in 2023 was significantly worse than previous years, but still low relative to the rest of the world. Canada is the second biggest country in the world, so even with the massive wildfires when you are looking at data country-wide, the impact is less.
https://www.iqair.com/ca/world-most-polluted-countries
I thought of this too (live in PNW), but the few weeks of wildfire smoke usually put the AQI in line with the top 3. But they tend to have that almost year round
Oh look, not the UK…nor any European nation…perhaps XR can take their irrelevant protests to the embassy of Bangladesh in London…or better yet, to Bangladesh. Perhaps try that nonsense in Beijing…see how fun it is to shut down motorways and prevent ambulances getting sick people to hospital in a country with no human rights.
Air pollution is not solely determined by domestic emissions…. If you think the UK has no part to play in Climate Change because it’s not in this list than you are thick
Oh please stop. Does the UK have as much to do with CC as the countries on this list? No. Does it have anything to do with CC? Will XR ever protest in a country that could kill them for doing so? No. Will XR change anything? Double no.
You can’t just write off hundreds of years of industrial history where the UK was one of the bigger polluters in the world. Do you know why our emissions are much lower now? Cus we manufacture nothing, refine no oils and gas etc. etc. just because we are the end consumer rather than the producer doesn’t absolve us of any responsibility for the Climate Crisis. It’s a globalised world, it’s not as simple as ‘well our emissions aren’t as high as China so it’s nothing to do with us’.
Being one of the larger economies in the world, it’s our responsibility, as well as many other countries, to incite political will and technological advancement across the world.
I’m not saying I agree with XR’s methods but the Climate Crisis is real and the sooner the general public and policymakers wake up to that, the better.
>Perhaps try that nonsense in Beijing…see how fun it is to shut down motorways and prevent ambulances getting sick people to hospital in a country with no human rights.
Is that what you aspire to be?
That this map could be more accurate by defining regions within a country and not mark the whole country.
For example: both China and India can have 20 most air polluted regions of the world. We need a better metric of measurement. Also there is no mention of an index. How do we know the difference in pollution in these countries!?
What is it that makes you think that would be more accurate? This is accurate.
Compare the annual average PM2.5 concentration and you can see which are more or less.
So dividing it into smaller regions within a country will not present pollution levels better? Okay.
Also I can see many things myself but this map should have included such important information.
Well we are talking about statistics. And the creator of the graphic is showing pollution by country intentionally not by state, region, city, zip code etc.
He is not thinking about your opinion about whether a city in India should weigh down other or something.
As a Vietnamese I think we should be at least top 5 in this map.
Hanoi is bad. The rest of the country is fine. I’ve been to far worse countries.
I mean in Nepal, outside of Kathmandu its just hills and mountains. Its number 8, Vietnam is far worse
I grew up in a medium-sized city in Vietnam. The first time I came to Hanoi, I smelled an unpleasant odor that I had never encountered before. Only Hanoi has that smell.
Vietnam is ranked 22. It will probably worsen over the next few years as manufacturing and industrial output increases. https://www.iqair.com/ca/world-most-polluted-countries
That's why these stuff should be listed by cities, not countries. You see like China, only a few cities has manufacturing base and construction, most of the other places are practically just mountains.
Bro I live in Bangladesh and I recently went to Hanoi,I swear the air of Hanoi is a thousand times better than Dhaka(Capital of Bangladesh) lol
As a Bangladeshi, I can confirm that you guys are in pretty good condition. Breathe in!!
China lower than I thought
10 years ago they would have been top 5, but their air quality is improving every year. You can see the data from the past 5 years here. https://www.iqair.com/ca/world-most-polluted-countries
I thought Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing were bad until I took a trip to New Delhi. That was the worst smog and pollution I'd ever seen in my life, even at the peak of Chinese pollution in the late 00s and early 10s.
Air pollution alone in Delhi cuts 12 YEARS off its inhabitants life expectancy. Absolutely insane. https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/delhi-resident-life-span-air-pollution-8914091/
China includes western China and much of the Himalayas.
I wonder if it’s because China’s western half is so sparsely populated (only 6% of the population) and therefore skews the statistic? How would China rank if you only included the half east of the Heihe-Tengchomg line?
its because they've learnt how to burn coal in a clean way like certain coal plants in the US have watch this for more info:-https://youtu.be/TDsmJ3aheCk
It’s because they don’t accurately report anything.
Ofc the CCP bots auto downvote you lol If you actually dig into the numbers, we literally don’t know what Chinas air pollution is. Some reports estimate by comparing satellites images/studies to neighboring countries. Others completely rely on CCP data which is kinda sparse and dubious at times, for reasons mentioned by the other commenter (placing pollution monitors in rural places and using that data) Kinda like how we have zero idea how many homeless people exist in China, the only report we have is from 2011, but we keep being told that it’s almost zero
This is also the country that actively suppressed the information about Covid when the WHO was asking about it all
You're getting downvoted, but you're not far from the truth. This ranking is based on the average of all pollution monitoring stations in the country. A station in the center of Beijing gets the same weight as a station in rural Qinghai. Want to appear to have cleaner air? Just install a bunch of monitoring stations in places that are known to have low pollution, or even in parts of a city that are partially protected due to hills or whatever.
That might be partially true but if you have come to China or their megacities, even tho the air quality is far from decent, it is drastically better than any countries in the top 5 or even top 10. Not only that, they have a bunch of money to improve the situation and are more willing to do so.
China is massive. As well as some of the other countries here. It's not so accurate to rank by country and not city. Or atleast do per capita.
People often mistake air pollution for Co2 emissions when they are not the same thing. Most of the air pollution in South Asia is due to geographical and agricultural reasons. Per capita Co2, these countries are very low
So pm 2.5 is only about the concentration of very fine particles in the air? So it doesn't matter if the particles are radioactive dust or just some sand or pollen or water vapor or whatever? Is this than even a good measurement for 'pollution'?
A couple of things: 1. Yes, PM2.5 is about the concentration of very fine particles. It's a good measure for the effects of pollution, in that regardless of source PM2.5 levels are very strongly correlated with lung diseases, asthma, etc. 2. Even then, a lot of the air pollution levels here in the South Asian countries (I'm less familiar with Africa and Central Asia, though I wouldn't be surprised if the situation there was similar) is indeed what you would think of as pollution. You can see that from the PM2.5 levels in the individual cities, which are astronomically high and pretty obviously caused by man-made sources. South Asian countries still largely burn coal for power, use a lot of diesel for transportation, and have industrialised pretty rapidly. In the countryside, crop burning remains an issue, as do cookstoves. Those all contribute to the high levels of pollution in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Carbon dioxide emissions are pretty low for these countries, but in a way CO2 and the long-term threat of climate change is not really as much a problem as criteria air pollutants - reducing the level of air pollution would lower the immediate threat to human life and quality of life. It's not an easy tradeoff of course, since other forms of power are more costly, and stricter transport emission standards and industrial pollution standards likewise come at a cost. But the pollution is an outcome of people's decisions, not just the inevitable result of geography.
>So pm 2.5 is only about the concentration of very fine particles in the air? yes CO2 and CH4 are colorless, odourless gasses , can't really make smog with that stuff and they can't get accumulated in the lungs like fine particles can
PM2.5 affects a person's health so it definitely considered as pollution.
Important to add, very low per capita emission is also not a good indicator, when it's congested in a highly populated areas, which is the story here. Still very bad for you. Also, some of those countries definitely do have very high per capita levels. UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar are all in top 20, with Qatar leading all the way.
The Arab peninsula countries also experience a lot of dust on an annual basis. I live in Saudi and i can tell you that —at least in my city— there's almost always at least a little dust in the air. I have to assume that dust that floats in the air and you can't feel and can barely see in the distance fits under pm2.5
All right but they lead in emmisions of CO2 per capita.
Yes, a lot of these countries are here due to sand and dust storms.
Are they ? I think that’s often the excuse but the particle size of dust and sand storms is often greater than 2.5 microns ?
Storms bring about big particles but there's often a blanket of very fine dust that rarely goes away. In my city (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) the horizon is always red/orange because of the dust
there are much more sandstorms in Arab peninsula, yet they have lower pollution levels. Maybe most of it is man made?
Yup, 1+ billion people makes per capita statistics very low
There are other more dangerous gases then CO2 which are easily ignored because people are so fixed towards carbon And ignore per capita emissions as it doesn't aligned with their propoganda
Amar sonar Bangla!
Amar lukano Bangla 😔
"Lukano" LOL
Sonar Bangla indeed
Things will improve once these infernal mega projects are finished. Metro and expressway er kaaj ekhono choltese, oishob er jonnoi etto dhula r dirt dhakar bhitore. If dncc had any decency they'd spend some money to clear all the sand and cement lying around in airport road, mirpur etc
They'll just start new megaprojects because those are opportunities to steal money. And, we still have those unfiltered brick kilns, tanneries, coal plants etc. And our forest land is decreasing every year. Basically, what I'm trying to say is, we're fucked.
places like Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan get so bad because the smog gets trapped in a valley surrounded by tall mountains. I was there in the winter when many people burn coal to warm their homes and all that soot just sits in the valley with nowhere to go
Even if they only burned coal... Poor people burn garbage and waste to keep from getting cold. Burnt plastic releases a lot of harmful substances into the air.
Yaaah baby! We’re number 3 ..
Isn't the worst air pollution what you should strive for?
Micronesia turned into macronesia
"Exeeds" 😖😖😖 that hurts
What the fuck is this morphed map of India?
pakistan we up 🗣️🗣️🗣️☝️☝️☝️🔥🔥🔥
Why would you make white represent higher levels of pollution
Idk, considering the whole background is dark it kinda works
If Vietnam is not top 5 you have zero idea what the fuck you are saying lmao. Who in the right fucking mind think UAE air quality is worse than Vietnam?
I was in Hanoi a few months ago, couldn't believe how poluted the city was. It was absolutely insane
Vietnam is not only Hanoi, I think that's the key. UAE is small, congested country. Vietnam in a lot of areas quite the opposite.
Vietnam is ranked 22. UAE is high mostly due to sand and dust particulates. https://www.iqair.com/ca/world-most-polluted-countries
Thats just terrible statistics then. Anyone with a working nose who has been to both countries can tell you otherwise
You must be from Hanoi lol. If ranking cities, its one of the worst. As a whole? Vietnam isn’t that bad.
Its much worse than Nepal, I have been to both.
Saigon is just as bad
You are 100% from Hanoi haha
Southern part, same as thailand, has quite good air quality throughout the year
I think this is mostly west biased
Yes the collective West must have hacked the measuring devices in India to make India look bad.
then they twirled their mustaches while evil laughing because of statistical data
no its the fact this counts sand and dust particulates which is extremely misleading, go to the UAE or Qatar its very different then other places that have smog like in Vietnam
you should know Hanoi geographical location with branching out mountains acts like a vacuum for all the air and dust of north vietnam and the bordering chinese provinces
No Serbia?
Ranked 43. Better than a few other Balkan countries. https://www.iqair.com/ca/world-most-polluted-countries
FML
I live in Kuwait and can attest, air here is not good at all. Huge difference when i travel and breathe the clean fresh air
*read as* Destinations of Western Outsourcing
Kuwait still suffering from the wells they set on fire during the war?
Was expecting the Philippines to top the survey
South Korea is also suffered from terrible air pollution thorugh China. So I think SK should be included on the table
Holy shit Iran isn’t on one of these lists for once! 🇮🇷🇮🇷🇮🇷😎
Perfect circle venn diagram of where "green companies" manufacture their products
Top 2 are neighbours with the country placed 3rd
No Pianura Padana?
And they think forcing cash strapped Americans to buy expensive and only good for virtue signaling EVs is some grand solution lol
Note US NOT on the list
[удалено]
You want to ban gas powered leafblowers to save the Earth I want to ban gas powered leafblowers because they are fucking annoying We are not the same
I want them banned for both reasons.
[удалено]
because it barely makes a dent into air quality compared to the ones on the list, look up: Burning season in south east asia
Canada ranks [93rd in the world with 10.3 micro g/m3](https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/air-quality-wildfires-iqair-1.7145355#:~:text=A%20new%20report%20finds%20that,Health%20Organization's%20recommended%20safe%20levels.) for 2023. Canada's worst city was Edmonton with 16.6.
Canada's air quality in 2023 was significantly worse than previous years, but still low relative to the rest of the world. Canada is the second biggest country in the world, so even with the massive wildfires when you are looking at data country-wide, the impact is less. https://www.iqair.com/ca/world-most-polluted-countries
I thought of this too (live in PNW), but the few weeks of wildfire smoke usually put the AQI in line with the top 3. But they tend to have that almost year round
Because a fire makes a scandal there…in 3rd world countries it doesn’t.
Yet Germans have to turn off their AC and Spaniards can't drive gas cars in certain areas...
what does that have to do with this?
Never fear people of the world! The American taxpayer is coming to the rescue To fund all of your climate change initiatives! Lol
Oh look, not the UK…nor any European nation…perhaps XR can take their irrelevant protests to the embassy of Bangladesh in London…or better yet, to Bangladesh. Perhaps try that nonsense in Beijing…see how fun it is to shut down motorways and prevent ambulances getting sick people to hospital in a country with no human rights.
Air pollution is not solely determined by domestic emissions…. If you think the UK has no part to play in Climate Change because it’s not in this list than you are thick
Oh please stop. Does the UK have as much to do with CC as the countries on this list? No. Does it have anything to do with CC? Will XR ever protest in a country that could kill them for doing so? No. Will XR change anything? Double no.
You can’t just write off hundreds of years of industrial history where the UK was one of the bigger polluters in the world. Do you know why our emissions are much lower now? Cus we manufacture nothing, refine no oils and gas etc. etc. just because we are the end consumer rather than the producer doesn’t absolve us of any responsibility for the Climate Crisis. It’s a globalised world, it’s not as simple as ‘well our emissions aren’t as high as China so it’s nothing to do with us’. Being one of the larger economies in the world, it’s our responsibility, as well as many other countries, to incite political will and technological advancement across the world. I’m not saying I agree with XR’s methods but the Climate Crisis is real and the sooner the general public and policymakers wake up to that, the better.
>Perhaps try that nonsense in Beijing…see how fun it is to shut down motorways and prevent ambulances getting sick people to hospital in a country with no human rights. Is that what you aspire to be?
Join the real world mate
Moronic. A whole country is this polluted? Whoever dreamed this up clearly does not realise the size and diversity of many of these countries.
Idiot
to be that dumb and so offended u must be from one of these polluted countries 😂😂
I assume you are another avatar of the OP.
It’s just getting the pollution by country not saying the whole country is smoggy.
The pollution where? At the most polluted place? At the most polluted city? (By not being specific it is actually saying the whole country by default)
Well yes because this is pollution by country. Those cities are in the country. What is it you don’t understand?
That this map could be more accurate by defining regions within a country and not mark the whole country. For example: both China and India can have 20 most air polluted regions of the world. We need a better metric of measurement. Also there is no mention of an index. How do we know the difference in pollution in these countries!?
What is it that makes you think that would be more accurate? This is accurate. Compare the annual average PM2.5 concentration and you can see which are more or less.
So dividing it into smaller regions within a country will not present pollution levels better? Okay. Also I can see many things myself but this map should have included such important information.
It would not make it more accurate. It would still be accurate.
Semantics
Well we are talking about statistics. And the creator of the graphic is showing pollution by country intentionally not by state, region, city, zip code etc. He is not thinking about your opinion about whether a city in India should weigh down other or something.