A health crisis that in 20 days left 500 children poisoned in the adjacent municipalities of Quintero and Puchuncaví triggered the decision to close the Ventanas Smelter, in a first concrete step towards putting an end to a so-called "sacrifice zone" in Chile.
Ankita Gupta, a housewife from south Delhi, is anxious about whether she should send her 4-year-old daughter to kindergarten. Outside visibility is poor as
smog — a combination of emissions from factories, vehicle exhausts, coal plants and chemicals reacting with sunlight — has settled over the city, surpassing dangerous levels.
As evidence mounts on the threats posed by air pollution to both human health and the environment, action must be urgently taken to address this problem.
New research is showing that air pollution is a powerful if silent killer, causing 6.5 million worldwide deaths as well as being the major cause of climate change.
China and India are not the only countries with an air pollution problem. Ninety-eight
percent of cities in developing countries don’t meet World Health Organization (WHO) air quality standards, according to new research published by the UN body.
A regional agreement on managing transboundary haze caused by fires raging in Indonesia’s forests and peatlands appears all but buried in the embers of frustration of its neighbouring countries.
Pollution is likely to be the most pressing global health issue in the coming years without effective prevention and clean-up efforts, experts say.
There's little argument about the basic facts: It's ugly (think strip malls and big box stores). It's not very convenient (hours spent behind the wheel to get to work). And it wreaks havoc on the natural environment (lost farmland and compromised watersheds).
Like many others of her age, 15-year-old Aastha Sharma, a Class 10 student at a private school in India’s capital, New Delhi, loves being outdoors, going for walks with her friends and enjoying an occasional ice-cream. But the young girl can't indulge in any of these activities.
The village of Dong Mai in Vietnam's agricultural heartland had a serious problem.
Macau’s gaming boom just keeps on giving. Gambling revenues soared to a new high of 45 billion dollars last year, a whopping 18.6 percent rise over 2012 and the city’s sixth straight year of record earnings.
“My nephew was eight years old when he stepped in the ‘munha’ [charcoal dust] and burned his legs up to the knees,” said Angelita Alves de Oliveira from a corner of Brazil’s Amazonia that has become a deadly hazard for local people.
Mexican cities with populations of more than 500,000 face serious obstacles in monitoring air quality and reducing air pollution, but as of July local authorities will be required to do both, and to submit mandatory reports on their efforts to the federal government.
As usual, midtown Manhattan is packed with whisper-quiet cars and trams while thousands walk the streets listening to the birds of spring sing amongst the gleaming, grime-free skyscrapers in the crystal-clear morning air.
In a megacity like the Mexican capital, plagued by air pollution and traffic jams, carsharing and carpooling initiatives offer obvious advantages in addition to the economic benefits enjoyed by users.
The Coatzacoalcos river basin in southern Mexico is so polluted that you can sense the mercury in the air, feel it and breathe it, and the population living in the area is only too aware of its undesirable neighbours: refineries and petrochemical complexes that emit this toxic element into the air and water.
With Barack Obama’s re-election last month as U.S. president, key environmental protections escaped a likely Republican chopping block, and new regulations are expected when his second term begins in January.
The planet can be cooled a whopping 0.5 degrees C with fast action to reduce air pollution from coal-fired power plants, gas fracking, diesel trucks and biomass burning, recent studies show.