{"id":471318,"date":"2026-03-12T10:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T10:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/471318\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T10:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T10:58:08","slug":"london-san-francisco-and-beijing-achieve-remarkable-reductions-in-air-pollution-air-pollution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/471318\/","title":{"rendered":"London, San Francisco and Beijing achieve \u2018remarkable reductions\u2019 in air pollution | Air pollution"},"content":{"rendered":"

London, San Francisco and Beijing are among 19 global cities that have achieved \u201cremarkable reductions\u201d in air pollution, analysis has found, having slashed levels of two airway-aggravating pollutants by more than 20% since 2010.<\/p>\n

The analysis found interventions such as cycle lanes, uptake of electric cars and restrictions on polluting vehicles had helped to drive the improvements.<\/p>\n

Beijing and Warsaw topped the ranking for cleaning up fine particulate pollution (PM2.5), reducing levels by more than 45%, while Amsterdam and Rotterdam saw the greatest improvement in nitrogen dioxide (NO2), with cuts of more than 40%.<\/p>\n

San Francisco was the only US city that cut levels of both pollutants by more than 20%, according to the analysis<\/a> of nearly 100 cities around the world. China and Hong Kong are home to nine of the 19 cities, with European cities making up the rest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis report shows that cities can achieve what was once thought impossible: cutting toxic air pollution by 20-45% in a little over a decade,\u201d said Cecilia Vaca Jones, executive director of Breathe Cities, one of the organisations behind the report. \u201cThis isn\u2019t just happening in one corner of the world; from Warsaw to Bangkok, cities are proving that we have the tools to solve this crisis right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burning fossil fuels releases toxic gas and harmful particles that are among the biggest threats to human health.<\/p>\n

The smallest of these particles can pass into the bloodstream and spread through the body, damaging organs from the brains to the genitals, while nitrogen dioxide hurts the airways and reacts with water to form acid rain.<\/p>\n

The report, shared exclusively with the Guardian, looked at air quality in cities in the C40 and Breathe Cities networks \u2013 mostly large cities, but also some smaller ones such as Heidelberg in Germany \u2013 and found \u201csubstantial reductions\u201d can be achieved within 15 years through deliberate action.<\/p>\n

It highlighted examples of action that had helped to clean the air, such as China\u2019s rapid switch from combustion engine cars to electric ones, the expansion of cycle lanes in dense European cities, London\u2019s restrictions on dirty vehicles and Warsaw\u2019s shift away from coal and wood home heating. It did not explore the causal chain to distinguish between air quality improvements from local policies versus national ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cAir pollution is often presented as a problem that is too difficult to solve and one that is politically unpopular,\u201d said Dr Gary Fuller, an air pollution scientist at Imperial College London, who was not involved in the report. \u201cThis report shows that bold policies can improve the air that we breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, a report<\/a> found nearly every country on Earth has dirtier air than doctors recommend breathing. Just seven countries that met the World Health Organization\u2019s guidelines for PM2.5 last year, according to IQAir, a Swiss air quality technology company.<\/p>\n

There are no safe levels of PM2.5, but doctors estimate millions of lives could be saved each year by following their guidelines.<\/p>\n

Breathing polluted air affects our health through every stage of our lives, said Fuller, from low birth weight babies and asthma in children to cancer and heart problems in adult life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the last 10 years, we have learned that air pollution is linked to cognitive decline and dementia in old age,\u201d he added. \u201cAll of these illnesses exert a massive toll on families, hamper our economies \u2013 as people are off work ill or looking after others \u2013 and exert a direct cost on our health services. All of these illnesses are preventable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"London, San Francisco and Beijing are among 19 global cities that have achieved \u201cremarkable reductions\u201d in air pollution,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-471318","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}