-

 

According to the WHO, air pollution is one of the greatest environmental risk to health. The revised WHO guideline puts the annual acceptable exposure to PM2.5 at 5 µg/m3 or less, down from 10 µg/m3.

This 2021 World Air Quality Report is based on PM2.5 air quality data from 6,475 cities in 117 countries, regions and territories around the world. No country met the latest WHO air quality guideline for PM2.5 in 2021, and only 222 out of 6,475 global cities covered in the report met the updated WHO PM2.5 guideline.

According to the report, Central and South Asia had some of the world’s worst air quality in 2021 and 46 of the world’s 50 most polluted cities. UN Environment Programme observes that 70% of global air quality-related deaths occur in this region.

PM2.5: particles with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less. PM2.5 can penetrate the lung barrier and enter the blood system. Chronic exposure to particles contributes to the risk of developing cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, as well as lung cancer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

-
Image
Human Development Index ( HDI ) 2021 measures the average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development—a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living. The health dimension is assessed by life expectancy at birth.  The education dimension is measured by the mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and more, along with expected years of schooling for children of school entering age.  The standard of living dimension is measured by gross national income per capita. The pandemic dealt a serious blow to human development worldwide. In the 2021 index, 90% of countries saw their HDI value drop. Only a third of very high HDI countries saw a decline in 2021 (compared with over 90% in 2020), whereas HDI scores of 60% of low, medium and high HDI countries declined.
Read more
-
Image
  The World Press Freedom Index 2021 ranks 180 countries and regions according to the levels of freedom available to journalists. It provides an overview of the freedoms available to the media based on pluralism, independence of the media, quality of legislative framework and safety of journalists in a country or a region. Norway remains at the top for the fifth year in a row, followed by Finland. Germany came down from 11th spot to 13th spot and has been reclassified as "fairly good" and the United States was placed at the 44th spot. Brazil (111) and Russia (150) share the "bad" classification with India, placed at 142. China continues to be at the 177th spot with internet censorship, surveillance and propaganda at unprecedented levels.
Read more
-
Image
China is the king of surveillance. At the end of 2021, an estimate by IHS Markit puts the number of installed surveillance cameras globally at over a billion, and more than 50% of it in China. An analysis by Compatitech shows that around 540 million cameras were installed in China, which equates to an average of 372.8 cameras per 1,000 people. Densely populated cities like Shenzhen could have at least 6,220 cameras per square mile, followed by Wuhan with 5,429, and Shanghai with 4,323 per square mile. Indore, Hyderabad, Delhi, Chennai, Singapore, Moscow, Baghdad, London, St. Petersburg, and Los Angeles are the 10 most surveilled cities outside China.
Read more