Spare the air: examining air pollutant levels in 11 major cities of India
Air pollution in recent years has become one of the most critical environmental issues. According to the 2021 World Air Quality Report, almost every Indian city exceeded the recommended WHO air quality levels. In India, the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for some pollutants are already higher than the outgoing WHO air quality guidelines. In order to highlight the gravity of the crisis, Greenpeace India has analyzed air quality data from eleven major Indian cities between 2021 and 2022. The results indicate that air pollution is a public health crisis across northern and southern Indian cities. The latest stringent guidelines push many more cities into the category of dangerously polluted cities.
