Only 10 Countries Had Healthy Air Quality in 2023, Report Finds

The average person can go up to two months without food, three days without water, but only a few minutes without air. Breathable air is essential to life. Yet a new analysis found that last year, only 10 countries and 9% of global cities had air quality that met World Health Organization guidelines for harmful fine-particle, or PM2.5, pollution.

A commuter walks along an overpass in Jakarta, Indonesia, during a weeks-long spike in local air pollution, Aug. 22, 2023.

Photographer: Muhammad Fadli/Bloomberg

Some of the places most affected were in the Middle East, Africa and Central and South Asia. Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan and Burkina Faso ranked as the five countries with the most polluted air in 2023, weighted by population, according to the report by ...