{"id":3405,"date":"2026-03-20T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/?p=3405"},"modified":"2026-04-13T15:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T15:09:10","slug":"what-went-right-this-week-big-cities-breathed-a-little-easier-plus-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/?p=3405","title":{"rendered":"What went right this week: big cities breathed a little easier, plus more"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n                                    <span class=\"half-and-half__title h5\">Big cities breathed a little easier <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">Air quality has improved dramatically in some of the world\u2019s biggest cities, a<\/span>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/breathecities.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Breathe-Better-Report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">report<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\"> has found, with Beijing (main picture), London and Paris among those leading the way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">The research, conducted by campaign group Breathe Cities, identified 19 metropolises that have slashed air pollution by between 20% and 40% in just 15 years. Nearly half were in Asia, where improvements came despite rapid economic development. Nine were in China.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">An embrace of cycling, the introduction of clean air zones and a switch to electric vehicles were among the leading drivers of air quality improvements, the report found. However, there\u2019s much work to be done. Separate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iqair.com\/newsroom\/waqr-2025-pr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">research<\/a> shows that only 14% of cities globally met the World Health Organization\u2019s pollution guidelines in 2025. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">Air pollution is the world\u2019s leading environmental health risk, driving respiratory and cardiovascular disease, asthma, and premature births, with lower-income communities most affected. However, it doesn\u2019t have to be this way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">\u201cThe pathway to cleaner air has been tested at scale \u2013 now it\u2019s about enabling more cities to follow it,\u201d said Cecilia Vaca Jones, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">Breathe Cities\u2019 executive director.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">The cities identified in the report are: Brussels (Belgium) , Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Nanjing, Qingdao, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Zhenjiang (China) , Paris (France) , Berlin and Heidelberg (Germany) , Rome (Italy) , Amsterdam and Rotterdam (Netherlands) , Warsaw (Poland) , London (England) , and San Francisco (US).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Related:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.positive.news\/society\/10-ways-that-the-future-of-urban-living-will-be-greener\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">10 ways that future urban living will be greener<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">Image: <span class=\"MuiBox-root mui-16qd35q-centeredContent-avatarContainer\"><span class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-body1 mui-1w8ttpd-contributorLabel-linkAvatarLabel\">Kristi Blokhin<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Big cities breathed a little easier Air quality has improved dramatically in some of the world\u2019s biggest cities, a\u00a0report has found, with Beijing (main picture), London and Paris among those leading the way.\u00a0 The research, conducted by campaign group Breathe Cities, identified 19 metropolises that have slashed air pollution by between 20% and 40% in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[614,238,615,616,617],"class_list":["post-3405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adaptation-lifestyle","tag-dementia","tag-good-news","tag-justice","tag-pollution","tag-renewables"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3407,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3405\/revisions\/3407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}