Diari Salih / Researcher
- The air of the capital, Baghdad, recently witnessed a serious pollution episode; accordingly, it was classified as the second most polluted city in the world, as the levels of some polluting elements reached nine times the rates approved by the World Health Organization as safe limits for the relationship between human beings and the environment.
- Government authorities confirm that the causes of pollution are concentrated in specific areas such as Al-Rashid Camp and the Nahrawan area. In addition to the spread of factories that do not comply with environmental standards, these parts have turned into a large dump for the waste generated by the capital, which reaches nearly 10,000 tons daily.
- So far, Iraqi governments appear incapable of finding realistic solutions to the problem of air pollution and the deterioration of the environmental system as a whole in Iraq, particularly in the capital. Here, resorting to the militarization of environmental solutions is not considered an appropriate response in an environment dominated by bribery and clientelist relations.
- People living in a large part of these areas believe that their fate is threatened by investment projects behind which, at times, stand influential forces for whom the environment does not figure at all in their dictionary of concerns.
Despite the seriousness of the environmental situation in the capital, the government remains incapable of imposing solutions, and it is still thinking in a traditional way based on the principle of the “militarization of environmental oversight” in a situation rife with disorder, which is ultimately reflected in many manifestations, including the continued presence of the activities behind the capital’s air being unfit for safe living. This sounds the alarm regarding the effectiveness of the plans and measures that are supposed to address this problem, especially as they have begun to coincide with the expansion of investments that usually pay no attention to the fate of the environment and its problems in the Iraqi case. This paper addresses the phenomenon of air pollution recently witnessed by the capital, Baghdad, and the important repercussions it has raised at the governmental and societal levels in dealing with this dangerous event.
