Is London Air Really that Polluted?

The UK capital’s issues with air quality are well-documented, with Mayor Boris Johnson having implemented a series of initiatives over recent years in a bid to alleviate the smog and pollution which regularly engulfs the city. However, a new study by the World Bank has found that London’s pollution problems may not be as grave as previously thought when viewed on a global scale.

The report found that of all of the cities monitored, London was 2,516^th worst in terms of air quality. Incorporating cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants and all capitals, the study encompassed a total of 3,226 cities, meaning that London finds itself in the top 23 percentile for urban air quality worldwide.

Spotlight on London

In recent years, London has consistently failed to meet the minimum standards of air quality imposed by the EU, leading to considerable fines from the body in an effort to make it clean up its act. Boris Johnson has responded to this crisis with a number of measures aimed at improving air quality and reducing transport-related pollution, including the introduction of a congestion charge, forcing older, more polluting diesel vehicles off the road and bringing in Boris bikes to encourage cleaner methods of transport.

Despite all of these initiatives, the city still faces significant challenges. Nitrogen dioxide in the capital currently accounts for a whopping 5,879 deaths per annum, earning it the nickname of the Big Smoke. Meanwhile, the central shopping avenue of Oxford Street was named the most polluted street on the planet last year and indeed broke the legal limit of air pollution emissions for the entire year in just four days. 

Clearly, the city still has a lot of work to do.

How London Compares Globally

Whether or not Oxford Street is the most contaminated street in the world, London certainly is not the most polluted city. That dubious honour goes to Nyala in Sudan, while six of the top 10 most polluted cities worldwide are also found in that country. Pakistan, Iraq and Egypt are all guilty of high pollution levels in their urban areas, with 30, 15 and 12 cities in the top 100 most polluted, respectively.

Those figures are according to the World Bank study mentioned above – however, another report from the World Health Organisation (WHO) conducted last year tells a different story. Taking a reduced number of 1,622 cities as its test pool, the WHO concluded that London was the 940^th most polluted city. Delhi, meanwhile, was found to have the most polluted air worldwide, with particulate matter (PM2.5) levels as high as 10 times greater than those found in the UK capital.

This is not to say that London still does not have a lot to answer for. Although the two studies came up with differing results for which cities in particular suffered from the worst pollution, they both highlighted cities in the developing world as the principal offenders. As the capital of a fully developed nation, London should not be seeking justification by comparison with them and should instead strive to attain the relatively clean air achieved by cities such as Paris, Edinburgh and Manchester.