Shafaq News- Baghdad

Baghdad ranked as the world’s most polluted city at the start of 2026, recording an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 301, according to a report by the Earth Protection Program (EPP). a level, classified internationally under the “purple warning,” indicates severe toxicity that warrants a public health emergency.

The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights explained that the primary cause of this environmental crisis is the widespread use of more than 50,000 diesel-powered generators in Baghdad and other major Iraqi cities, describing them as “suffocating pollution hotspots.”

In its report, the Observatory estimated that Iraqis spend between $6B and $10B annually on generator subscriptions, drawing from personal savings, and warned that the system “threatens their right to life and health.”

Mustafa Saadoun, head of the Observatory, described the situation as an environmental annihilation enabled by decades of institutional failure and the complicity of political interest networks. He said generators often operate without filters or regulatory oversight, under legal and political protection that shields organized groups.

“If current conditions persist, some Iraqi cities could become uninhabitable by 2030 due to cumulative pollution, rising temperatures, and mounting health risks,” the report warned, stating that this would constitute a “serious violation of the constitutional and legal right to life, health, and a clean environment.”

The Earth Protection Program called for an “immediate green roadmap,” including holding generator owners and complicit officials accountable, shifting toward clean energy and household solar systems, enforcing Environmental Protection and Improvement Law No. 27 of 2009, and installing internationally certified carbon filters and sound suppressors on all generators.

Urging both local and international authorities to intervene to halt environmental degradation and protect future generations, the observatory said Iraq’s environmental crisis has moved beyond service failure and now amounts to “an organized crime against public health.”

Meanwhile, Iraq recorded more than 46,000 cancer cases in 2024, including 11,642 cases in Baghdad alone, which the Observatory linked to prolonged exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) at levels up to eight times higher than the global safety limit.