These cities are included in the Clean Air program. Atmospheric air monitoring data for 2021 was presented by Roshydromet.
According to Vadim Petrov, Secretary of State of the Russian Environmental Chamber, Chairman of the Public Council under the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet), the decrease in air purity was due to changes in the air quality assessment methodology within the Clean Air program, thus the list of polluted cities, that had not previously sounded in the context of air pollution, was extended.
“For more than half of the substances, the standards were adjusted in the direction of tightening, so the number of cities where the maximum allowable concentration (MAC) was exceeded for any of the pollutants was increased to 211, previously with the old standards of such cities there were 77. It turns out that in 80 % of cities where observations are carried out, at least once a year, an excess of MAC for any substance is recorded. More than 70 million people live in these cities. And this is a serious challenge. In addition, the list of cities with the highest pollution has been increased from 12 to 42. The biggest pollution is noted by benzapyrene and maximum efforts should be made to solve this problem under the sanctions. The sanctions have indeed undermined the pace of modernization and transition to the best available technologies. This is a task for the import substitution program, but most of the technologies will not be replaced in the next 5 years. This is a challenge, we need to think about what to do next,” the Novye Izvestia agency quoted Vadim Petrov as saying.
