Agra, Uttar Pradesh, June 3, 2019 – Kickstarting the World Environment Day celebrations in India, a comprehensive action plan to control air pollution was launched in Agra, one of India’s most polluted cities and home to the majestic Taj Mahal.

In September 2015, the sky above Kalimantan, Indonesia, turned a dark yellow as fires swept across the region’s peatlands emitting a dense haze. The streets became empty of people and the air— thick with smoke—difficult to breathe.

“Whenever I recall that moment, it's always traumatic for me,” Emmanuela Shinta, a youth Dayak activist who was in Kalimantan that day, told UN Environment. “Our city became like a dead city.”

“Oh, here comes one now,” the engineer says, pointing up. In a blink, a capsule about the size of a paint can has shot across the ceiling in a pneumatic tube. Inside is a sample of soil collected from one of hundreds of monitoring spots across Jiangsu province, on China’s central eastern coast.

In China’s Hebei province the Xiong’an New Area is being built sustainably from the ground up. Designed to absorb urban pressure from Beijing, the city itself will run on 100% renewable energy.

To fight air pollution, a global menace that claims 7 million lives each year, everybody has to do their part – from governments, to businesses to individuals.

To mark this year’s World Environment Day, Veolia—a global waste management group with 171,000 employees in 40 countries—has thrown considerable weight behind the movement to clear the air.

In a country whose sovereign territory is almost 100 per cent ocean, there are an unexpected number of cars, trucks and motorcycles packed into the Maldivian capital.

Some 70,000 vehicles buzz around the roads of Malé, one of the world’s smallest and most densely populated capital cities. That’s almost one vehicle for every two people living on the small, cramped atoll.

New Delhi, 5 July 2019 – India has formally joined the Climate & Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), becoming the 65^th country to join the partnership, following through on a commitment made by the country’s newly-appointed Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar, during last month’s World Environment Day celebrations.

They have been dubbed the “Miracle Games”. After the original host country withdrew, many were wondering if there would be a 16^th iteration of the Pacific Games at all in 2019.

Air pollution is a complex issue that is difficult to communicate to most people. What causes air pollution? How does it affect our children’s cognitive development? What does air pollution have to do with rising temperatures?

Without dissolved oxygen, fish cannot survive. Healthy water normally contains between 7-8 mg/l of the gas. Less than 5 mg/l is dangerous to marine life. And if the level drops to 1-2 mg/l for even a few hours, the result is catastrophic for fish and shellfish living in the ecosystem. Usually, a mass die-off occurs.