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The city of Tampere in Finland leads the current EEA ranking of air quality with the Swedish Umeå
Photo: Medvedkov / Stockphoto / Getty Images
The European Environment Agency (EEA) has assessed the pollution with fine dust in 323 cities in 26 EU countries as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland - the result is the new ranking list for air quality.
The cleanest air is found in
Umeå in Sweden
and
Tampere
in Finland.
In
Funchal
on the Portuguese island of Madeira, in Estonia's capital
Tallinn
and in
Bergen
,
Norway
, particulate matter pollution has been particularly low in the past two years. The bottom of the list, on the other hand, can be found predominantly in Poland and northern Italy.
Overall, the EEA certifies 127 cities with good air quality. In 123, the load is considered moderate, in the remaining 73 as bad or very bad. This classification refers to the average air pollution with fine dust (PM2.5) in the years 2019 and 2020. Anyone who is below the recommended value of the World Health Organization (WHO) receives a "good": The WHO recommends that the long-term exposure to 10 micrograms of fine dust (PM2.5) per cubic meter of air, which is stricter than the EU value. Anyone who tears the annual EU limit of 25 micrograms - this applies to five cities in Poland, Croatia and Italy - gets a "very bad".
According to the analysis, 61 percent of cities exceed the WHO benchmark, said EEA head of Air Pollution, Environment and Health, Catherine Ganzleben.
According to this, only 2 percent are above the annual EU limit.
This is how German cities fare
Göttingen has the cleanest air of all 52 listed German cities: The Lower Saxony university city ranks 29th, followed by Freiburg (45), Darmstadt (46), Lübeck (50) and Hanover (56).
They and 25 other cities in the Federal Republic of Germany are said to have good air quality, the 22 others are rated as moderate - with Berlin at the bottom of the list in Germany in 219th place.
No German city landed in the “bad” or “very bad” categories.
However, several major German cities such as Cologne were not included.
According to the EEA, this may be due to the fact that measuring stations or certain data are missing.
Almost all Europeans suffer from air pollution
As already emerged from an EEA report at the end of 2020, air quality in Europe has improved noticeably over the past decade due to, among other things, reductions in emissions from transport and energy supply.
As a result, almost 60,000 fewer people died prematurely each year from exposure to particulate matter compared with 2009 and 2018.
Nevertheless, almost all Europeans continue to suffer from air pollution from fine dust, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone, especially in cities.
According to EEA estimates, more than 400,000 people died prematurely in 2018 in 41 European countries as a result of exposure to these pollutants, including tens of thousands in Germany.
Once again, the EEA pointed out that air pollution was still a serious problem and a real health risk in many European cities.
Fine dust remains the number one air pollutant that has the greatest impact on premature deaths and illnesses, said expert Ganzleben.
EEA Executive Director Hans Bruyninckx said: "While air quality has improved significantly over the past few years, air pollution remains stubbornly high in many cities in Europe." The overview now allows citizens to easily compare where their city is located at Air pollution landing.
aar / dpa