Produced By: Hitansh Gaur
Switzerland-based air quality tech company IQAir recently released its annual report on world air quality. India fared badly in the report for 2022 as 14 most polluted cities out of the top 20 were from the country.
IQAir has ranked India as the eighth most polluted country in the world. India’s pollution levels did show improvement in 2022 as it dropped from its earlier rank of being the fifth most polluted country in 2021.
African nation Chad claimed the top spot of being the most polluted country in the world. Chad was followed by Iraq, Pakistan, Bahrain, and Bangladesh in the second, third, fourth and fifth position respectively. Bangladesh has made some progress in 2022 as it was termed to be the country with ‘worst air’ in the 2021 report.
Pakistan has been ranked as the third most polluted country for a consecutive year, while Chad has moved up a spot from last year’s second rank.
In this year’s report of 2022, China was ranked at the 25th spot, while Germany, Japan and the US were ranked at 88, 97 and 99 spots respectively. Ukraine was ranked at number 96 above Japan despite the ongoing war with Russia. The least polluted country for 2022 was Guam.
IQAir also released the list of 20 most polluted cities and the top two spots went to Pakistan and China while Delhi ranked 4th. Here’s the complete list: 1 Lahore, Pakistan 2 Hotan, China 3 Bhiwadi, India 4 Delhi, India 5 Peshawar, Pakistan
6 Darbhanga, India 7 Asopur, India 8 N’Djamena, Chad 9 New Delhi, India 10 Patna, India
Most Polluted Cities: Ghaziabad, Chapra, Baghdad
11 Ghaziabad, India 12 Dharuhera, India 13 Baghdad, Iraq 14 Chapra, India 15 Muzaffarnagar, India
16 Faisalabad, Pakistan 17 Greater Noida, India 18 Bahadurgarh, India 19 Faridabad, India 20 Muzaffarpur, India