Air pollution caused an estimated 6,000 deaths in Tehran last year, while the city has recorded just six clean-air days since the start of the current Iranian year in March, Tehran’s Air Quality Control Company said on Friday.
“From late March to early August, Tehran had only six clean-air days,” the agency said. Other days ranged from moderate to very unhealthy, with at least three classified as hazardous.
The report comes as concerns grow over the government’s energy strategy and its environmental impact. In recent weeks, Iranian officials have confirmed that fuel oil, which is one of the most polluting fuels available, is once again being widely used to generate electricity amid power shortages.
“All power plants across the country used fuel oil at full capacity last year,” Saeed Tavakoli, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company, said this week. He said the practice continued despite public claims that the administration prioritized environmental protection.
Tejarat News, an economic daily, criticized the government for quietly resuming the use of mazut, a low-grade fuel, after ordering a temporary halt in several cities last winter. “Fuel oil burning is no longer an emergency fix. It has become a systemic policy reflecting the collapse of energy planning,” it wrote in an editorial this week.
Pollution tied to tens of thousands of deaths nationwide
In May, Health Minister Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi said Iran sees an estimated 50,000 deaths annually linked to air pollution. “Some countries have solved this issue, but we still have a long way to go,” he said.
Experts say the crisis is worsened by fragmented authority and limited enforcement. Though 23 government bodies have mandates to reduce pollution, analysts say most lack the power or resources to implement meaningful change.
“Laws stay on paper, and there is neither enough funding nor executive power to carry them out,” Mohammadreza Tavakkolian, an urban planning expert, told state media on Friday.
Calls to ban old vehicles, invest in cleaner energy, and empower a central environmental authority have so far gone unanswered. Critics warn that without systemic change, Tehran and other major cities will continue to suffer both in air quality and human lives.
“The solution to changing this regime lies in the hands of the people and the Iranian Resistance. With the regime’s overthrow by the people and organized resistance, Iran will move toward democracy and prevent a major regional war,” Maryam Rajavi told attendees at a conference in Rome.
“We will have a free, non-nuclear Iran, without executions, without mandatory hijab, without forced religion and without coercive rule,” she added.
Audience members, some wearing matching red and white outfits and headscarves, frequently interrupted her remarks with fist-pumping chants of praise.
The banned Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) group is the largest component of the NCRI whose leaders are based in Paris.
A leftist-Islamist group, the MEK carried out attacks against the shah's government and US targets in the 1970s but fell out with other factions during the 1979 revolution which toppled the monarchy and has been at war with Tehran ever since.
Opposition figures have stepped up calls to rally against Tehran following a punishing 12-day war with Israel last month, but there have been no significant protests.
Iranian exiled prince Reza Pahlavi urged unity among Iran's opposition during a pro-monarchy conference in Munich on Saturday, saying the Islamic Republic's downfall would lead to sustainable peace and prosperity in the Middle East.
The Rome gathering was titled “Neither war nor appeasement - change by the hands of the Iranian people and organized resistance” and hosted a series of senior Western ex-officials who criticized Iran's leadership and praised the NCRI.
These included former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former UK foreign minister James Cleverly and former Belgian prime minister and former president of the European Council Charels Michel.
Iran executed two MEK members accused of targeting civilian sites with improvised weapons, state media reported on Sunday.
“We hold this gathering while the religious tyranny, by executing heroic fighters Behzad Ehsani and Mehdi Hassani, expresses its desperation against the people and organized resistance. They never bowed and said “no” to the executioner,” Rajavi said.
The men were accused of like baghi or armed rebellion, moharebeh or waging war against God, efsadfel-arz corruption on earth, membership in a terrorist organization, gathering classified information and conspiracy against national security.
Amnesty International described their trial as "grossly unfair". Iran executed at least 901 people in 2024 - the highest number since 2015 - according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Since 2013, some 2,500 of the MEK members have been sheltered in Albania, where they are banned from engaging in political activity.