TEHRAN -- The head of the Iranian parliament’s environment faction says air pollution inflicts damages worth between 7 to 11 billion dollars on the country each year.
Somayeh Rafi’ei said in a note published by her office that more than 41,700 people lost their lives in Iran in 2021 due to air pollution, citing data by the World Bank.
She criticized the government for failing to take effective action toward improving the air quality in large cities.
The parliamentarian warned that the number of days with unhealthy air quality has doubled in the Iranian capital, Tehran, since the start o f the current Persian calendar year on March 21, compared to two years ago.
The number of days with highly unhealthy and dangerous air quality has also increased by 200 percent, she added, offering similar alarming figures for other air pollution hotspots in the country.
Earlier, Jafar Tashakori Hashemi, who heads the Transportation Commission of Tehran’s City Council, said Tehran had been ranked as the 21st polluted capital city in the world.
Over the past days, the unhealthy levels of air pollution have forced the closure of schools in Tehran.On Wednesday, head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society announced that Iran and Japan have inked an MoU on reducing the consequences of climate change.
In a meeting with Japan’s ambassador to Tehran Aikawa Kazutoshi, Pir-Hussein Kolivand said with 100 years of continuous experience in disaster management, the Iranian Red Crescent has valuable experiences to offer.
Kolivand said the IRCS is planning to build a training park to deal with natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods.
Kazutoshi, for his part, said that climate change has now increased the occurrence of natural disasters. He noted that mutual cooperation would be helpful and effective in responding to the incidents.
The Japanese envoy said his country has inaugurated the main project to control flood problems coinciding with the drought and voiced Japan’s readiness to work with the Iranian side on the adverse consequences of climate change.