In Santiago, this winter was different. The mountains surrounding the city – the same ones that usually trap smog and turn it into a “pressure cooker” – were visible more days than usual.
For nearly 30 years Chile’s capital has been experimenting in how to reduce air pollution; in the last few years the work has at last begun paying dividends and 2025 was the third best year in terms of fewest hours of critical pollution episodes since the first atmospheric prevention and decontamination plan in 1997. Over the last decade, hours of exposure to high levels of pollution fell by 66%, which, according to the environment minister, Maisa Rojas, means the 7.5 million residents of the metropolitan region “are breathing cleaner air”.
