Tehran – Iran’s capital city, which boasts a population of 14.4 million – is choking to death.
Schools and kindergartens shut their doors, replacing learning with a ‘TV school,’ universities stopped classes and emergency rooms packed with gasping patients.
This is the consequence of Tehran entering the ranking of the world’s top five most polluted cities, which may have contributed to the death of at least 357 people in the last week of November.
For 10 days in a row, the Iranian capital – as well as other major cities in the country – have experienced ‘very unhealthy’ air quality. The impact is rising rapidly.
Mohammad Esmail Tavakoli, director of Tehran’s emergency organisation, said that the city received 57,000 emergency calls and conducted 28,000 checks in the last week of November.
Nearly a third of the cases were linked to complications from air pollution.
Iranian media reported that the Air Quality Index (AQI) climbed to between 170 and 200 on November 29 – considered to be ‘unhealthy’ for everyone.
Mohammad Jafar Qaempanah, a deputy to president Masud Pezeshkian, had warned that ‘air pollution will kill if it becomes any more than this.’
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Earlier on Wednesday, the city was in the top five cities with the worst air pollution – just under Delhi, India – but has since dropped to number 19 in the ranking.
The AQI currently measures at 127 and is considered ‘unhealthy for certain age groups’.
On Monday, Tehran Air Quality Control Company announced that the city remains in the red zone – marking one of the longest continuous periods of dangerous air in recent years.
With only six clean-air days recorded since the beginning of 2025, people are now facing sustained exposure to hazardous levels of pollution.
Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani described this situation as ‘indefensible’, stating that ‘what citizens breathe in Iran’s major cities today can in no way be called clean air.’
The cities of Isfahan, Tabriz, Karaj, Ahvaz and Mashhad were also listed as those most at risk of severe deterioration.
Why is Tehran’s air pollution so bad?
Air pollution in Tehran – but across Iran too – is severe due to a combination of factors – millions of ageing cars and motorcycles, emissions from power plants and refineries burning heavy fuel oil (mazut) during gas shortages, and stagnant weather conditions that trap pollutants
The climate catastrophe has also increased the frequency and intensity of dust storms, which carry large amounts of particulate matter into the air.
Iran’s Clean Air Act – introduced in 2017 under the then-president Hassan Rouhani – was supposed to be the road map for solving those problems.
More than seven years later, many of the regulations from back then have not bee enforced.
Tavakoli, the director of Tehran’s emergency organisation, criticised Iranian officials for failing to tackle the environmental disaster while at the same time expecting emergency services to compensate for the consequences.
‘Some officials have set aside the Clean Air Act, and now those same people expect emergency forces to be deployed,’ he said.
He added that Tehran’s emergency system faces critical shortages, including 400 stations and 500 ambulances, warning that taking even a single ambulance out of service causes ‘irreparable damage.’
This is the latest environmental crisis to strike the Middle Eastern nation.
The worsening pollution is also intertwined with Iran’s intensifying drought and water scarcity, particularly in Tehran.
The unfolding crisis also comes in the background of mounting economic difficulties amid financial sanctions imposed over its nuclear programme.
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