Air Pollution findings posted by the World Health Organization (WHO) on its website have been challenged by the New Zealand Environment Ministry headed by the Environment Minister Nick Smith. In accordance with this, the World Health Organization has to delete the post which stated that NZ's air quality is quite low when compared to other major city of Australia and Auckland tops the list and has given competition to Tokyo.

In total, as many as 99 countries were assessed by evaluating their 1100 cities. To assess "PM10" particles level which poses great threat to health were recorded and from there they got to know that three places in NZ, Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington have more particle level than mentioned in the guideline.

After going through the post, Smith stated that the WHO needs to correct its facts as except Dunedin, all other places have reduced the air pollution level and Wellington, which was accused the most has purest air, with air pollution level of 11 than 21 of last year. Dunedin was found to be having more PM10 level and has increase from 19 to 25.

Realizing the mistake, the WHO's coordinator for health and the environment department, Carlos Dora, said in an interview that it was a mistake that was done while entering data in to the database and they have apologized for the mistake.