Delhi has world's most polluted air, 15 of 20 most toxic cities in India: Greenpeace

Here we are, all over again. Yet another global study has cited Delhi-NCR as the most polluted capital city in the world. It couldn’t have been easy for Delhi to go up against 197 other world capitals and come up at the top – the national capital is just in that dire a state where air quality is concerned. Topping a different list in the same report by Greenpeace is Gurugram, as the most polluted city in the world. Shockingly — or maybe we really shouldn’t be that surprised — India hosts 15 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities. Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Bhiwadi, and Noida came in after Gurugram in the top six, and Delhi in the 11th spot.

The report, Global Air Pollution 2018, was officially released on 5 March. Accompanying the report is an extended display of all the cities on the most-polluted list and their relative air qualities across different regions and sub-regions in 2018. “The real-time status of all included locations, together with many more, can also be explored through the IQAir AirVisual Air Quality Map, which brings together live air quality readings in one accessible place,” the NGO said. The report measures the quality of air using the single most important measure that affects public health: PM2.5, or the amount of fine polluting particles in the air. Data was aggregated using the IQAir AirVisual platform through multiple points in the year 2018, Greenpeace said in  a statement.

“(The report) is a reminder to us indicating that our efforts and actions to reduce the invisible killer, i.e., air pollution are not enough, and we need to do much more than already planned and done,” Pujarini Sen, Climate and Energy Campaigner at Greenpeace India said. “Beijing is showing us that it can be done, as have many other cities in Europe and the US over past decades… The question which remains to be answered is whether there is enough political will to aggressively fight the health emergency India faces today and move away from polluting fuels and practices of the past?”