The common particular person can go as much as two months with out meals, three days with out water, however only some minutes with out air. Breathable air is crucial to life. Yet a brand new evaluation discovered that final yr, solely 10 international locations and 9% of worldwide cities had air high quality that met World Health Organization tips for dangerous fine-particle, or PM2.5, air pollution.

Some of the locations most affected have been within the Middle East, Africa and Central and South Asia. Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan and Burkina Faso ranked because the 5 international locations with probably the most polluted air in 2023, weighted by inhabitants, in response to the report by IQAir, a Swiss air high quality expertise firm that collects air-sensor information all over the world. (The report cautions that the image in sub-Saharan Africa is incomplete, nevertheless, since solely 24 of 54 international locations had ample information to be included.) French Polynesia, Mauritius and Iceland had the least air air pollution.