Chad‘s Air Quality Monitoring Network Improves, Placing it Second Globally for Pollution. The African nation of Chad was included in a recent report for the first time, a growth attributed to enhancements in its air quality monitoring infrastructure. According to IQAir,the country experienced the second-highest levels of air pollution worldwide last year,surpassed only by Bangladesh.
Tarik benmarhnia, a climate change epidemiologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography with expertise in the health effects of wildfire smoke, highlighted a potential limitation of such reports: an over-reliance on monitoring stations can create blind spots.
“I think it is great that they relied on different networks and not only governmental sources,” Benmarhnia, who was not involved in the report, told CNN. “though, many regions do not have enough stations and option techniques exist.”
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its 2021 report, concluded that reducing fossil fuel consumption would not only help slow global warming but also yield the additional benefit of improving air quality and public health.
Hammes stated that the IQAir report provides further impetus for the global community to transition away from fossil fuels.
“We’ve got the report, we can read it, we can internalize it and really devote ourselves to taking action,” she said. “Ther needs to be a major move towards renewable energy. We need to take drastic action to reverse the tide of global warming; otherwise, the impact and the train that we’re on (would be) irreversible.”
