GUYANA is ranked 28th out of 180 countries on the Global Environmental Performance Index (EPI) for 2024, for its quality of air. Out of the 180 countries, Guyana is ranked sixth for Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) exposure, and 25th for Carbon Monoxide (CO) exposure.
This is according to the Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Kemraj Parsram, who during an interview with the Sunday Chronicle, emphasised the agency’s unwavering efforts in maintaining Guyana’s air quality and promoting environmental health, despite continued environmental disturbances.

He explained that this level of CO exposure is due to more burning being done in our environment. Before the current rainy season, Guyana had been experiencing a significant dry season (El Nino) for months, which resulted in several natural fires around Guyana.
According to Parsram, this happened in other countries like Suriname and other parts of South America and Central America.
Importantly, the EPA Head noted that with particulate matter (pm) 2.5, Guyana is ranked number one with several other countries. This, he said, means Guyana has perfect air quality as a result of low exposure to pm 2.5 across the entirety of Guyana.

It should be noted that there are locations that are frequently influenced by other factors resulting in a short time increase in air quality parameters.
The Executive Director stated that over the years, the EPA has managed to ‘bring down’ that level of air quality, like in places such as Linden where the air quality has improved drastically. On the IQ Air website, Guyana is ranked as 58th globally in air pollution, with Machado, Region Two being the cleanest city and Linden being the most polluted (again, this tested for air quality/ air pollution levels).

As one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, with rapid development ongoing at each turn, Guyana’s contributors to air pollution come from several other sources, including the recent wave of Sahara dust across several communities, oil and gas developments, and wildfire increases just to name a few.
“Development has changed. So, before there was low development activity. There were less pollutants. With development, road construction for example; an increased number of cars, you will have increased emissions or air emissions coming out. So, EPA steps in and makes sure that the Air Quality does not exceed World Health Standards. You will always have impacts, but we’re going to make sure that we maintain the standard that is good for human health,” the Head stated.

Within the last 10 years, Guyana has seen a significant increase in development across the regions, and the EPA’s role is to ensure that future and present development activities do not cause significant impacts on our environment.
The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) standard for air quality is a given level of an air pollutant (for example, a concentration or deposition level) that is adopted by a regulatory authority as enforceable. Unlike an air quality guideline level, several elements in addition to the effect-based level and averaging time must be specified in the formulation of an air quality standard.

These elements include measurement technique and strategy; data handling procedures (including quality assurance/quality control); and statistics used to derive, from the measurements, the value to be compared with the standard.

How air quality is measured?
Parsram indicated that there is a set of parameters used by the EPA to assess the quality of air. He mentioned that the numbers in particulate matter 2.5 and particulate matter 10 signify the size in micrograms of particulates, with pm 2.5 being extremely tiny particles, and pm10 being larger.

“So, these are two key parameters to assess the quality of particulate matter (dust),” He added that these also include the assessment of volatile organic carbon (VOC) exposure, SO2 exposure and CO exposure.
Over the last year and a half, the EPA through government subventions invested in remote real-time monitoring. Sensors were placed in key areas across Guyana: Essequibo, Whim-Berbice, Linden, Georgetown and on Eccles on the East Bank Demerara.

These sensors provide an immediate real-time air quality index. They also utilise satellite technology to detect (for example) fires, indicating where it is happening, and possible impact in terms of their direction in impacting communities.
Moreover when visiting industrial areas and permitted facilities, the EPA takes equipment along to measure the quality of emissions at these facilities. This will show if persons operating facilities which release emissions, if it is above or below WHO’s standards.
If it is above, the EPA will enforce necessary measures.