Overview

• Canada recorded its worst particulate pollution since at least 1998, with more than half the population exposed above the 8.8 µg/m3 national standard and the hardest-hit regions in British Columbia, Alberta and the Northwest Territories reaching levels comparable to Bolivia and Honduras.
• U.S. annual PM2.5 rose about 20% from 2022 as Canadian smoke shifted top hotspots from California to downwind states including Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Mississippi, and the number of counties above the national standard jumped to 308 from 12.
• Globally, average PM2.5 edged up from 23.7 to 24.1 µg/m3 in 2023, nearly five times the WHO guideline, with AQLI identifying particulate pollution as the greatest external threat to human health.
• In India, current pollution implies an average loss of about 3.5 years of life expectancy, rising to roughly 8.2 years for residents of Delhi based on 2023 levels.
• EPIC estimates that meeting India’s revised NCAP goal of a 40% reduction in pollution across 130 cities by 2026 would add about two years to residents’ lives in those cities compared with 2017.