Over 52,500 sign petition urging UN attention to UB’s smog

An Ulaanbaatar resident lodged an online petition last Wednesday, requesting the attention of the United Nations to the city’s deadly air pollution.

By Saturday morning, the “Death from Smog in Mongolia #HumanRights” appeal gathered 50,000 signatures, making it possible to go forward to the UN for consideration.

“I have just delivered the letter to #UN. Let's all voice our rights and demand change!” initiator of the appeal B.Bat-Enkh posted on the petition website change.org on Saturday.

Ulaanbaatar faces world’s heaviest air pollution every winter as more than 800,000 residents burn raw coal and other flammable materials to keep warm and cook meals during the sixmonth-long winter season. This is estimated to produce 80 percent of the local air pollution while slowly killing the people.

“The city of Ulaanbaatar is where half of the nation lives and they are all dying because apparently we don't have a right to fresh air. We see this as a human rights violation propagated by our own government and Parliament members who have failed to solve this issue for years and years,” wrote B.BatEnkh.

“As a citizen of Mongolia and a resident of Ulaanbaatar, I beseech you to push the Mongolian government into action and rid the Mongolian people of this horrible situation,” he pleaded to the UN.

The capital is home to about half of the national population of 3.2 million. Since the early 2000s, the Mongolian government, international donors and development organizations, including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, have spent millions of US dollars combating the city air pollution.

However, the city has yet to see significant improvements. As of Sunday morning, residents in the western side of Ulaanbaatar were exposed to 560 micrograms per square meter of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), which is considered “hazardous” by international standard.