We know that air pollution is harmful to our health. Numerous studies have shown that being regularly exposed to polluted air can increase the risk of developing a chronic respiratory disease (COPD, asthma, chronic bronchitis, etc.), cardiovascular disease (myocardial infarction or heart attack, stroke or stroke…) or even cancer (lung, in particular).
Hence the importance of thinking carefully about all the parameters before definitively “landing” in a region! Precisely: the 2022 report on air quality in the world of the Swiss company IQAir (published this Tuesday, March 14, 2023) lists the “worst students” in terms of air pollution. For this, the experts reviewed data recorded by more than 30,000 monitoring stations, installed around the world.
The least polluted European cities are in the North!
The 3 most polluted cities in the world are not in Europe: they are N’Djamena (the capital of Chad), New Delhii (the capital of India) and Baghdad (the capital of Iraq). In these cities, in 2022, the average concentration of fine particles was almost 18 times higher than the maximum level tolerated by the World Health Organization (WHO).
On the side of Europe, the air is more breathable… but only slightly. Because according to the report, only 4.6% of European cities and regions meet WHO standards for fine particles. The most polluted city in Europe is Athens (the capital of Greece), followed by Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria) and Bucharest (the capital of Romania).
Paris comes in 9th position, with an average concentration of 12.7 micrograms of fine particles (PM2.5) per cubic meter of air in 2022. The “city of light” is thus more polluted than Berlin (12.6 μg/ m3) and Rome (idem). The most breathable cities in Europe are in the North: Reykjavik (in Iceland), Tallinn (in Estonia) and Helsinki (in Finland).
Source : 2022 IQAir report
