Pollution, in 2025 fewer cities will exceed daily PM10 limits. There are 13, Palermo black jersey

The smog in Italian cities is decreasing, but not enough to really change course. In 2025 the number of provincial capitals that exceeded the daily PM10 limits (50 micrograms per cubic metre for a maximum of 35 days a year) fell to 13, compared to 25 in 2024, 18 in 2023 and 29 in 2022. This is - notes Legambiente, commenting on the new report 'Mal'Aria di città 2026', released on Monday 9 February - one of the most positive figures in recent years, but which, the environmental association emphasises, should not make us lower our guard.

In fact, if we look ahead to 2030, the year in which the new and more stringent European air quality limits will come into force (20 µg/m³ for PM10, 20 µg/m³ for NO2, 10 µg/m³ for PM2.5), Italia is still far from the required parameters: applying them today, 53% of cities would be outlawed for PM10, 73% for PM2.5 and 38% for NO2. An alert to which is also added the new infringement procedure launched in January 2026 by the European Commission against Italia for its failure to update the National Air Pollution Control Programme required by the 2016 NEC Directive. The fourth to be added to the three already opened in previous years for exceeding the limit values of air pollutants established by the Air Framework Directive (AQD).

In 2025, 13 provincial capitals exceeded the daily PM10 limit, set by European legislation at 50 micrograms per cubic metre and allowed for a maximum of 35 days per year. The black jersey this year goes to Palermo, with the Belgium control unit recording 89 days over the limit, followed by Milan (Marche control unit) with 66 exceedances, Naples (Pellegrini Hospital) with 64 and Ragusa (Athletics Field) with 61. Below sixty days were Frosinone with 55 exceedances, Lodi and Monza with 48, Cremona and Verona with 44, Modena with 40, Turin with 39, Rovigo with 37 and Venice with 36 days of exceedances. In the rest of the towns monitored, there were no overruns above the legal limits and, as has been the case in recent years, no town exceeded the annual values set by the regulations in force for PM10, PM2.5 and nitrogen dioxide.

The picture changes radically when one looks at the new limits that will come into force on 1 January 2030 with the revision of the European Directive on air quality: 53% of Italian provincial capitals (55 cities out of 103) are already failing to comply with the PM10 limit of 20 micrograms per cubic metre by 2030. The situations furthest from the target are in Cremona, where a 35% reduction is needed, followed by Lodi with 32%, Cagliari and Verona with 31%, and Turin and Naples with 30%. The situation is even more critical for PM2.5, where 68 cities out of 93, i.e. 73%, have an annual average of more than 10 micrograms per cubic metre. The most problematic cases are Monza, which has a current annual average of 25 micrograms per cubic metre and should reduce concentrations by 60%, Cremona with 55%, Rovigo with 53%, Milan and Pavia with 50%, and Vicenza again with 50%. As for nitrogen dioxide, 40 out of 105 cities, or 38%, do not meet the new value of 20 micrograms per cubic metre, with the situations furthest from the target recorded in Naples, where a 47% reduction is needed, Turin and Palermo with 39%, Milan with 38%, Como and Catania with 33%.

The most worrying fact, explains Legambiente, is the slowness with which many cities are reducing pollutant concentrations year after year. This edition of Mal'Aria analysed PM10 data from the last fifteen years (2011-2025), calculating through a five-year moving average the trend in each city and estimating the values that could be reached by 2030. Of the 89 cities analysed, 49 will have PM10 values above the new European limit of 20 micrograms per cubic metre in 2025. Of these, 33 are at real risk of not reaching the target if the current rate of reduction is maintained: Cremona could only go down to 27 µg/mc, Lodi to 25, Verona to 27, Cagliari to 26. The situation is also critical for Naples, Modena, Milan, Pavia, Turin, Vicenza, Palermo and Ragusa (today at 28 µg/mc), which could remain between 23 and 27 µg/mc. On the other hand, cities such as Bari, Benevento, Bergamo, Bologna, Caserta, Como, Florence, Foggia, Latina, Lucca, Ravenna, Rome, Salerno, Sondrio, Trento and Vercelli, today above the 20 µg/mc threshold but on the right trajectory to reach the 2030 target, could meet the target.