Pollution is now a political subject, that has been its big success’

The Director General of The Energy and Resources Institute on what to expect from the Katowice Climate Change Conference and how to tackle pollution

Ajay Mathur is the Director General of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). He is also a member of the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority and has been part of India’s negotiating team in earlier editions of the United Nations-convened Conference of the Parties (COP). In this interview, Mr. Mathur says we shouldn’t expect a big bang result next month at the Katowice Climate Change Conference, and explains how the air pollution problem is not insurmountable. Excerpts:

Next month, the COP will convene in Katowice, Poland, to finalise the rule book on how the 2015 Paris commitments should be implemented. Do you expect major headway?

The 2018 COP was always seen as the one where the rules for Paris would be put in place. Over the years there’s been a lot of discussion on that. At several meetings leading up to the COP, we’ve seen a lot of convergence on the rules regarding transparency (mainly on how nations will report their greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating actions) such that when you’re reporting, it is credible. This was a group of countries that was led by India’s Environment Secretary and was very successful as well as able to close discussions and get people together.

However, transparency is just one aspect of this rule book. There is still a huge degree of difference on issues related to financing. The developing countries believe that they cannot have certainty of action till international financial flows are known. So, they have to be reported ex ante (based on forecasts rather than on actuals). The developed countries don’t like it at all.

But isn’t this what the dialogue in every COP is usually about: Where’s the money that has been promised: about a $100 billion dollars annually by the developed countries, until 2020?

It’s absolutely clear that if you focus on this subject alone, there’s bound to be disappointment. I can’t see either the developed countries or the developing countries moving on this. But the point is that there are newer areas, like transparency, where we have moved ahead. The issue is, how will the political leadership be taken in Katowice, so that we can have an agreement on a rule book? This agreement could well be, say, here’s the core of the rule book and here are five other things that need to be agreed on and we we will do it over the next, say, one year, because Paris doesn’t kick into place until 2020. It could even mean that a rule book will be ready only in 2020. We were very ambitious and thought it would be ready in 2018 but we aren’t, so that’s fine.

But wouldn’t firming up a rule book mean that countries would have to agree to fixed targets on setting greenhouse gas emissions limits for themselves?

Absolutely not. As of now, the convergence is on transparency: How we will collect data, report the data, be sure that the reported data meet an acceptable level of quality control. If we agree to move ahead on obligations of the Paris deal, this is how you would do it. It is more about building trust that all of us are using the same kind of data. There may be differences in the (duties of) developed and developing countries but at least the elements are in place. We should go to Katowice expecting that at least the elements of the rule book are in place.

Through the years, there’s been concern that whenever India attends high-level meetings, it lacks its own empirical data and so ends up getting snowed in by modelling and projections made by others. Can the convergence towards transparency address this?

I would dispute that Indian experts are ‘snowed in’ by others’ data. What is true is that the level of analysis we do at a global level is more limited than what is done by others. What transparency will mean for us and other countries is that the basis for future projections and the basis for seeing whether we are actually achieving what we have promised is going to be much more superior than in the past. There were years in which we weren’t sure of data from many countries. Katowice is not a Paris but an essential meeting to operationalise Paris. There’s another thing in the rule book that relates to ‘stocktake’. It’s been decided that every few years from 2022, we will see how the world is doing as far as their actions are concerned. Are they on track to achieve what is promised? The stocktake will tell us that. As you can imagine, if we have poor data, we will make poor decisions.

Among India’s commitments is to achieve 100 GW of solar power by 2022. Several reports seem to suggest that we will fall short, particularly due to the slow uptake in rooftop solar. Will that be a major problem? Do we have time to fix this problem?

One part of the answer is that it is possible that 60 GW of grid-connected solar photovoltaic (like in solar farms) can become large enough to meet the target. With rooftop solar there are a large number of implementation problems and policy issues that we are still trying to understand. Only a few years ago, our concept of solar PV, especially in rooftop solar, was that it would be used only in isolated places where electricity would be available sporadically. Now, we have a situation where it is possible that by the year-end or next March, every home in the country will be able to access a wired connection. As per the Saubhagya scheme, I believe 94% of the homes are already connected. This has a different meaning for micro-grids, or mini-grids, because they were envisioned as being completely isolated. Now it means that it will take care of local power supply needs and anything additional would go into the grid, and if you need more power, you take it from the grid. In other words, it becomes grid-interactive. This means a completely different technical and business model.

Now, how can we operate this within a grid-operated system? Our meters are built for a one-way flow. We now need safety and isolation equipment that can be built for a two-way flow. We are used to electricity being produced at a higher voltage and being ‘stepped-down’ to come into your house. Now we need the lower voltage current produced in the house to be ‘stepped-up’ for giving back to the grid. All these things need to be put in one place. The other aspect is that electricity companies will now say, everybody wants to buy from me at the same time and sell to me at the same time. This means a huge amount of capacity for meeting night-time loads; and during the day, when electricity companies produce a lot, they have to buy. So, we also need to put all these things in place and have diversity in the rooftop solar grid system. These are things we are learning.

Then there are problems with urban planning. Say, I have a system in place and another taller building comes up which blocks out my solar system. What happens to my investment? Eventually it will all work. We are trying out 10 different things and two will work and become the ruling models.

TERI and the Automotive Research Association of India presented a study earlier this year that showed that cars and two-wheelers together contributed about 10% of the pollution caused by the transportation sector, which contributes 28% of the overall winter pollution load. This is not a small number. However you haven’t suggested a congestion charge or reigning in private vehicles during emergencies.

We need solutions that are necessary for Delhi. Let’s look at where the pollution comes from. One of the fastest-growing components is secondary particulate matter. They are not emitted as gases but become particles once they are in the atmosphere for some time. There are ammonium-based gases that are emitted and become particulate matter. If you ask me, the single largest impact is if we can address fires (biomass fires which also include fires from burning wood or for cooking). If we could completely switch over to gas and ensure uninterrupted supply of electricity, it would make a massive difference to pollution.

We just celebrated Diwali. There was a lot of hope for reduced emissions vis-à-vis the Environment Ministry’s pollution-restraining drives. However, we saw a blatant violation of the Supreme Court order on crackers. Don’t you think a lack of implementation is the key cause of Delhi’s air pollution problem?

The Supreme Court had said that crackers were only to be allowed from 8-10 p.m. That too green crackers. The data show that the day before Diwali was a clear day. There were hardly any crackers. Come Diwali evening and — just look at the data — crackers were lit with a vengeance. A friend who did this analysis said that the crackers burnt on Diwali night were no less than last year. And all illegal, as there were no green crackers. What this suggests is that private lighting of crackers from 8-10 p.m. is also a problem. Even if you have crackers that reduce emissions by x% but you have more crackers, reduction will be more than compensated. You will have the same problem.

We need to change the way crackers are used. We need to agree on an overall cap. If you want some equity around it, you could say that in each area there would be a locally organised community function and each of them would be given a permit to buy x amount of crackers. We need to control supply.

You’re a member of the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority. How effective has this agency been as an implementing body to address sources of pollution?

First of all, the EPCA is not a direct implementing body. It can direct agencies to take steps, point out to them that there’s a problem emerging, and fix it. If rules are flouted, the committee can issue directions to check activities in the National Capital Region. Those are its strengths. I’m a new member of the EPCA and have only been able to attend one meeting. I see that the EPCA will increasingly focus on the kinds of action that can lead to change that is felt here and now. We have an extremely active chairperson who has got huge experience in this area and there is no reason to think that he cannot lead a larger group of people. I would like more real-time data to be available to the EPCA to help with its decision-making.

Has the government become better at addressing pollution or is it restricting itself to legislation?

What has changed is that pollution has entered into the public consciousness in a big way. Pollution is also now a political subject and that has been its big success.

We should go to Katowice expecting that at least the elements of the rule book are in place.

We need to change the way crackers are used. We need to agree on an overall cap.

Source: The Hindu, 21/11/2018

Rising pollution could hit monsoon rains: UN report

Rising air pollution in India is likely to impact rainfall patterns in the country and decrease monsoon in long term, which can cause extensive financial losses, warns a United Nations report released on Tuesday. “Air Pollution in Asia and the Pacific: Science-based Solutions” presents a scientific assessment of air pollution in Asia and the Pacific. Released in the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) first global conference on air pollution and health in Geneva, the report covers various pollution aspects which India is grappling with. The largest impact of air pollution on the Indian monsoon will be a decrease in the amount of rainfall, the report warns. “However, some parts can also witness high precipitation depending on the topography. Pollution will also impact the duration and distribution of rainfall,” said Nathan BorgfordParnell, science affairs adviser at Climate and Clean Air Coalition who coauthored the report. The report states that the presence of particulate matter 2.5 (PM 2.5), a deadly tiny pollutant, can affect precipitation patterns during monsoon in India. “A weaker trend in the Indian monsoon precipitation has been linked to changes in the emissions of particles and other pollutants from within and outside Asia,” the report says. The report also has a word of praise for several mitigation measures taken by the government. Recognising indoor air pollution as a major health crisis in India, the report reveals that it is contributing as much as 22-52% to the country’s ambient air pollution. Speaking exclusively to TOI, Andy Haines, member of the scientific advisory panel of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, said from Geneva, “The muchneeded mitigation measure that India needs to ensure is provision of clean household energy. Burning of fossil fuels in households is a big health threat, especially for women and children.” UN claims that if the suggested measures are implemented, annual premature mortality associated with indoor air pollution can decline by 75%. This means that about 2 million premature deaths per year can be avoided in countries like India. The economic development data of 41 countries (in Asia and the Pacific) shows that unlike many other nations who managed to control air pollution with economic development, India’s air quality got worse with an increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). A graph shows as India transitioned from a lowincome to a middle-income country between 1995 and 2014, levels of PM 2.5 increased significantly. Haines added that growing air pollution was affecting the country’s health care, with an increase in ailments like heart attack, cancer and other respiratory diseases.

Source: Times of India, 31/10/2018

India tops in under-5 deaths due to toxic air, 60,000 killed in 2016: WHO

‘Air Pollution Killed Over 1L Children In ’16’

India’s toxic air has been linked to the premature deaths of close to 1,10,000 children in 2016, with the country witnessing highest number of deaths of children under five years of age attributed to their exposure to ambient air pollution of particulate matter (PM) 2.5, said a World Health Organisation (WHO) report released on the eve of the first-ever conference on air pollution and health. As many as 60,987 children of under five years of age in India died because of their exposure to PM 2.5, followed by Nigeria with 47,674 deaths, Pakistan with 21,136 deaths and Democratic Republic of Congo with 12,890 deaths. In India, the death rate for this age bracket is 50.8 per 1,00,000 children with more girls under the age of five dying than boys due to pollution. About 32,889 girls died, compared to 28,097 boys in 2016, according to the report. Between five and 14 years, India saw the deaths of 4,360 children attributed to ambient air pollution in 2016. Across both these age groups, over 1 lakh children died in India due to both ambient and household pollution of particulate matter 2.5 in 2016. Particulate matter 2.5 orPM 2.5 are fine dust particles in air which are considered highly harmful for health. The report, titled ‘Air Pollution and Child Health – Prescribing clean air’, seeks to caution against the rising levels of pollution causing growing burden of diseases as well as deaths. Over 2 million deaths occur prematurely in India due to pollution, accounting for 25% of the global deaths due to air pollution. Globally, every day around 93% of children under the age of 15 years (1.8 billion children) breathe air that is so polluted it puts their health and development at serious risk. WHO estimates that in 2016, 6,00,000 children died from acute lower respiratory infections caused by polluted air. While in low and middle income countries, 98% of children under five are said to be exposed to PM 2.5, in high income countries, this number is almost half at 52%. The report also highlights adverse impact of pollution on pregnant women and children. Pregnant women, exposed to polluted air, are more likely to give birth prematurely, and have small, low birth-weight children, the report says. “Air pollution is stunting our children’s brains, affecting their health in more ways than we suspected,” said Dr Maria Neira, director, department of public health, environmental and social determinants of health at WHO

Source: Times of India, 30/10/2018

Pollution in India has now become a national health crisis

Phasing out the most polluting vehicles — old trucks, buses and tempos — at the earliest is unavoidable

India has 14 of the 15 cities in the world with the maximum air pollution. In Delhi, pollution levels attain dangerous proportions as Diwali approaches. The lungs and brains of a large percentage of children are getting irreversibly damaged. The country has the highest rate of deaths from chronic respiratory diseases and asthma. This is a national health crisis which calls for urgent action.

While there is no magic bullet such as odd-even, there are feasible measures which would make a huge difference in a few years. The easiest would be to get all households to use clean energy for cooking with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), or, electricity. Burning of cow dung cakes and firewood for cooking not only harms the lungs and eyes of women, it is also a major source of all air pollution. Electricity is targeted to reach all households by next year. Its use for cooking can be promoted. LPG cylinders through Ujjwala can be made to reach everybody in a few years. However, the really poor cannot afford to pay more than Rs 200 or so a month for cooking. The first hundred units of electricity in a month, enough for lighting and cooking, could be provided at Rs 3 per unit, or, a LPG cylinder for Rs 300. This can be done through a subsidy from the government, or, cross-subsidy by the energy companies.

A market-based solution for the burning of crop residue would work best. An attractive enough price for crop residue for conversion to briquettes to be burnt in coal fired stations, or, for generating electricity directly through gasification would put an end to crop burning. The transition would be driven by private investment and without any subsidy. Thermal plants need to offer a viable price for briquettes and the distribution companies for electricity from crop residue.

Phasing out the most polluting vehicles, such as old trucks, buses and tempos, at the earliest, is an unavoidable necessity. This has to be a countrywide measure as air pollution moves across villages and towns. Implementation would be easier if there is a considerably lower price for a new vehicle when the old one is traded in and there is a system of scrapping old vehicles that can be closely monitored.It could easily be done by the government foregoing a substantial portion of the GST on such vehicles. Germany successfully implemented a trade in programme at the time of the global financial crisis of 2008 to generate additional demand for their auto industry.

The supply of fuel of contemporary international standards, Bharat Stage Six (BS 6), now being implemented, would make a difference only gradually as more new BS 6 compliant vehicles get on the road. But for an immediate impact, all new taxi, bus and three wheeler permits for running within cities should be given only for electric vehicles. Sufficient number of charging stations would naturally need to be created well in advance. The huge potential of electric vehicles in reducing air pollution is not being adequately recognised.

Old coal-fired thermal power plants in, or, those close to major urban centres need to be closed down forthwith. This can be done without difficulty as there is surplus power generating capacity with much more in the pipeline. However, only a firm central mandate will make this happen.

All industrial clusters need a diagnostic audit for air pollution. Technically feasible measures with state financial assistance and in partnership with industrial units would have to be implemented to reduce air pollution. Clearly, the use of coal for energy and heating by small industrial units has to be phased out. The extension of a gas grid to all industrial areas has been unduly delayed in the country. Electricity for continuous process industries to be provided at lower rates reflecting actual costs of supply would also help.

For all this and more to happen, the central, state and city governments have to agree to do what it takes, including providing adequate funds. Finances can come from the coal, or, a new clean air cess. The health costs to the nation of inaction are far higher. Coordinated action across multiple institutions is never easy. Sustained political commitment would be an essential prerequisite.

Ajay Shankar is distinguished fellow, TERI

Source: Hindustan Times, 25/10/2018

How India can use better data and regulations to stop industries from choking its cities

Why does India have 14 of the world’s 20 cities with highest air pollution when it has set limits and stipulated strict criminal punishments to enforce them? And what's a possible solution?

Fourteen of the world’s 20 cities with highest air pollution are in India, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) last ranking. Why is this the case, when India has set pollution limits and stipulated strict criminal punishments to enforce them?

One reason is that rules are only effective when people follow them. Several studies have shown that there are wide gaps between what regulation says on paper and how industry and the public act on the ground. Indeed, our research suggests that if India met its own air pollution standards, life expectancy in India could increase by almost 1.5 years on average, and if the country met the WHO’s standards, that number goes up to roughly 4 years.

How can we improve matters?

The shortcomings of regulation

First of all, let’s look at why regulations have failed to bring pollution levels down to the standard. Typically, environmental regulation in India relies on an inflexible set of rules, which does not seem to work well in practice. Despite the threat of harsh punishments, factories we tested in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Orissa over the course of several years exceeded emission limits over half of the time. Similarly, a study by the Central Pollution Control Board found that vehicle testing centres in Delhi were often inaccurate, suggesting that certification for cars may not mean much.

Different approaches may work better – ones that take a more nuanced view of human behaviour based on the incentives people face, and that employ new technologies that are growing cheaper and more accessible.

Polluters generally won’t take costly measures to reduce pollution if punishments for violations are rare. Why pay when you won’t get caught? This attitude, in turn, may be an unintended effect of policy: because environmental law relies on criminal penalties, regulators’ primary method for enforcement is to shut down plants and hold up investment, both of which are costly and can undermine economic growth. Our research finds that, as a result, regulators punish only a small fraction of major violators, and often let plants off with no penal action.

The goal of regulation should be twofold: Make it hard to hide polluting behaviour, and ensure that reducing pollution is never more expensive than it needs to be.

Enable new monitoring techniques

With industrial pollution, much of the problem is the difficulty of obtaining reliable measurements of factory emissions and acting on the results. Typically, regulators or third-party auditors conduct factory inspections only occasionally, at which point they take readings that the court can use to mete out punishments. Not only does this leave emissions unmeasured most of the time, it relies on the honesty of a small group of individuals who are reporting pollution levels. Research has shown that auditors hired and paid by factories tend to under-report violations.

Because of these problems, state and central governments have begun to require the use of technology to automatically, and continuously, monitor the pollution being released by factories. While this is an important step, there is a high risk of the information generated by these instruments being unused or unusable. There are two major reasons.

First, large volumes of new data need to be routinely used by pollution control board officials in enforcing pollution norms. However, since the technology is still unfamiliar, pollution control boards need to build capacity and evolve new processes to consume this information effectively.

Second, these instruments need to be calibrated at regular intervals so that the reported measurements correspond accurately to true pollution levels. If not done properly and with sufficient regulatory oversight, the reported data is likely to be biased. We have been working with the Gujarat and Odisha State Pollution Control Boards in taking steps to fix these issues, and our findings may guide improvements to monitoring systems nationwide.

Make pollution data transparent to the public

Ultimately, the costs of pollution fall on citizens. Around the world, countries have made pollution data completely transparent and accessible. The idea is to enlist the public to put pressure on industries to report accurately, and become cleaner. Examples include the PROPER scheme in Indonesia and the Green Watch programme in China, both of which were found to be effective in reducing pollution.

Certain states in India have begun to take innovative steps in this direction. We are collaborating with the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board on a new Star Rating programme launched in 2017. Under this rating, industries are ranked on a 1 to 5 star scale based on their past pollution tests and this information is made freely available. This pilot is growing rapidly to cover the state and we are conducting a rigorous evaluation of its effects on industry pollution. The state of Odisha has also announced that it will soon launch a similar initiative.

These schemes cost little to implement, and if more states adopt them, India could experience a revolution in environmental transparency. Industry already competes for profits – pollution ratings could make them compete to be greener as well.

Move toward a market where firms pay to emit pollutants

In an emissions market, the government sets a cap on amount of a pollutant allowed across an industry, then lets firms bid and trade for the right to emit part of that total. Similar markets are already in use in environmental policy around the world and have a number of benefits, such as giving already-clean plants incentives to further reduce their emissions.

We believe that a market for particulate emissions in India could dramatically lower air pollution, while reducing the costs of compliance. Not only is the good for growth, it is in line with the “polluter pays” principle, which has been repeatedly invoked by the Supreme Court of India.

We worked with the Central Pollution Control Board and the Gujarat Pollution Control Board to collect detailed information from industries in Surat. Based on this data, we predicted that the overall costs to industry of reducing pollution under a market would be up to 40 per cent lower with emissions trading than under current regulation. NITI Aayog recently advocated markets and emissions charges, and an important judgement by the National Green Tribunal held that emissions charges are legal and desirable. The way is clear for India to put these ideas into practice.

Source: Indian Express, 13/08/2018

Won't just go by foreign data, will do study on air pollution: Centre

Vishwa Mohan

New Delhi:





In the wake of international studies that point to rising deaths due to air pollution in India, the Centre announced on Tuesday that it will come out with its own study of the effects of such pollution on human health.Though environment minister Anil Dave maintained that such reports -for example, a recent one that attributed nearly 1.1 million premature deaths in 2015 to air pollution -are based on extrapolation without scientific validation, he said, “The environment ministry is working with the health ministry to assess trends and impact (of air pollution) in this regard.“ He emphasising that the government must trust the data coming from Indian scientists.
“We are also not saying that we do not take note of those (foreign) studies. Neither are we saying those (global) studies are correct or incorrect... A proud country always trusts its own data and takes action on that. We believe in our institutions,“ Dave said.
Though India has not denied air pollution-linked health hazards, it has preferred not to refer to number of deaths in absence of scientific study .The only available report on the issue relates to an epidemiological study on ambient air quality and its impact on children in Delhi by the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, Kolkata in 2010.
The report highlighted impact of air pollution on human health but didn't speak about specific number of deaths in India. The environment ministry had in August 2015 told Parliament that more than 35,000 had died due to acute respiratory infections (ARI) across India in over nine years from January 2006 to mid-2015.
Without attributing these deaths directly to air pollution, it had said air pollution causes respiratory ailments and may affect lung function.It also noted how it acts as an “aggravating“ factor for many respiratory ailments and cardiovascular diseases. Though global studies halinked far more deaths to ve linked far more deaths to air pollution in India, referring to the 2010 report was a rare official admission that pollution could be causing deaths. The figures, shared in Rajya Sabha in August 2015, show that Bengal reported maximum number of ARI deaths, followed by Andhra (united), UP , MP , Karnataka and Delhi. Asked about action being taken by the Centre to deal with the menace, Dave referred to the 42-point action plan issued to states for implementation and said state governments and local bodies also played a crucial role.
Dave said tackling air pollution was no “rocket science“ and the states and local bodies have to play a “decisive“ role as the Centre can only work like a “philosopher and guide“ in a federal structure.
Referring to air pollution in Delhi, Dave noted that 20% of the air pollution is due to dust on roads and is a major reason for PM 2.5 levels. He said vehicular emissions contributed to 20% of air pollution while another 20% is due to industries, generator sets and stubble burning.
Dave, however, pointed out that the problem was not restricted to Delhi alone. “Since Delhi's air condition becomes worse, we see it more. But the same experience is there in Patna, Bhubaneswar, Mumbai -their health is affected in a similar way ,“ said Dave.

Source: Times of India, 22-02-2017

Every breath you take

Air in several Indian cities is rated poorly by international studies. Unlike China, India is not trying to clean up its act

If nothing else, a recent graphic in The Guardian, based on data from the journal, Preventive Medicine, and the World Health Organisation (WHO), should awaken the government to the terrifying dangers of air pollution in this country. It shows cities around the globe where the harm caused by cycling or slow jogging — measured in minutes per day — exceeds the benefits of such exercise due to the inhaling of pollutants. These refer to smallest measureable particulates of matter — PM 2.5 that are less than 2.5 micrometers and can bypass the body’s defences; by comparison, particles of 10 micrometers are less than the width of a human hair.

The world map —the graphic — shows India with a crown of such polluted cities straddling the north of the country and extending into Pakistan and Afghanistan, forming the biggest concentration of such danger spots in the entire world. Gwalior and Allahabad top the list (along with Zabol in Iran) where more than 30 minutes of cycling or slow jogging in a day is counterproductive. Patna and Raipur figure in the next band where the tipping point is 45 minutes, while in Delhi — listed as the world’s worst polluted city by the WHO in 2014 — Ludhiana and Kanpur cycling or slow jogging becomes counter-productive after 60 minutes. This means that despite living in the diabetes capital of the world and facing rising obesity levels, Indians will not be able to keep fit by any brisk exercise above these time limits. The American school in Delhi listed only five days in the four months after October 2015 that were safe for children to play in the open.

Obviously, walking is also hazardous, though for a longer time limit. While the journal and WHO address the middle class all over the world, the poor in these Indian cities have no alternative but to walk or cycle to work. A 2008 study by the Institute of Urban Transport (India) estimated that there were a million trips by cycle every day in Delhi. This data comes just before alarm bells rang with the State of Global Air 2017 report by two US-based institutes which shows that there were 1.1 million premature deaths in India due to long-term exposure to PM 2.5 in 2015. Since 2010, India and Bangladesh have recorded the highest such levels in the world. While China registered slightly higher figures, it has now acted against this hazard — the situation in India, in contrast, is getting worse. China has registered a 17 per cent increase in these deaths since 1990, while the increase is nearly 50 per cent in India. The highest number of premature deaths globally due to ozone is also in India. Might all this qualify as genocide?

To complete the toxic trio of such studies, new research in the journal Environment International shows that pre-term babies (born less than 37 weeks of gestation) face the risk of death or physical or neurological disabilities due to exposure to PM 2.5, among other factors. However, such exposure can also affect babies in the womb. In 2010, as many as 2.7 million pre-term births in the world — 18 per cent of the total — were associated with this fine particulate matter, which can lodge deep in a mother’s lungs. India alone contributed 1 million such pollution-related births, twice that in China.

A recent e-book on air pollution titled Choke by Pallavi Aiyar, who lived in Beijing before the 2008 Olympics, details the measures China took to clean up its act. Like Delhi, Beijing was afflicted by the burgeoning number of cars and rampant construction; like Delhi, it was hit by dust storms (from the Gobi desert, as against the Thar) and is similarly landlocked. Unlike Delhi’s environs, it didn’t face the pollution caused by the burning of agricultural waste. Half the world’s concrete and a third of its steel was used for the games. Construction materials and debris transported in open trucks or dumped indiscriminately contributed the bulk of coarser particles.

Stung by international media criticism, which posed a threat to the games, the government swung into action. It began to enforce the measurement of “blue sky days” in a year, which rose from 241 in 2006 to 274 two years later. However, international researchers alleged that some monitoring stations had shifted to cleaner areas to fudge the figures — always a problem with China’s statistics. Despite this, blue skies were a visible proof of the clean-up.

China spent $17 billion on improving its capital’s environment from 2001, when it won the Games bid, to 2008. On air pollution alone, it spent $557 million. The number of buses doubled, while 50,000 old taxis and 10,000 old buses were scrapped and replaced with new models. It introduced 4,000 CNG buses — something that Delhi did in 1998. Over 200 polluting industries were shifted out — due to the lack of democratic safeguards, China doesn’t face the prospect of protracted law suits. There was a fourfold increase in use of natural gas. Nevertheless, Beijing’s GDP rose four times between 2000 and 2007 with large-scale industrialisation and urbanisation proceeding “at a breakneck speed”, writes Aiyar.

China cracked down on cars that didn’t meet emission standards by preventing them from entering the city. The decline in sulphur dioxide levels was the most dramatic achievement. In a decade from 1998, it “leapfrogged” – to employ the exhortatory title of a tome by the Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi – from Euro I to Euro IV standards. Euro IV had gasoline with 50 parts per million (ppm) sulphur, as compared to 800 ppm under Euro I.

By 2012, Beijing restricted the ownership of cars to those who didn’t possess one and bidders had to enter a monthly lottery. Notably, something which Delhi’s mandarins should note, it limited the use of cars by government officials. By 2014, it had cut the number of new license plates by 37 per cent. In 2013, Beijing announced that it would spend a total of $163 billion in five years on tackling pollution. Across China, PM 2.5 levels fell by 37 per cent between 2010 and 2015.

What will it take Delhi to gets its act together to stop being the world’s air pollution pariah? Perhaps international criticism by environmental experts and the media like the controversy over The New York Times correspondent who wrote he was leaving the country for fear of worsening his young son’s asthma. Successive governments have turned a blind eye not only to urban air pollution but also to indoor contamination caused by smoky chulhas. Years ago, Kirk Smith, an American expert now at the University of California at Berkeley, loosely compared such exposure to the equivalent of inhaling carcinogens from two packs of cigarettes a day. He is now researching how LPG can reduce the health risks faced by pregnant women while cooking in India, as well as the contribution of households to ambient air pollution in the country.

The writer is Chairman Emeritus, Forum of Environmental Journalists in India

Source: Indian Express, 20-02-2017

The foul air we breathe

 A new international report has drawn attention to the deadly pollutants that pervade the air that people breathe in India, causing terrible illness and premature death. The State of Global Air 2017 study, conducted jointly by the Health Effects Institute and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, quantifies further what has been reported for some time now: that the concentration of the most significant inhalable pollutant, fine particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometres or less (PM2.5), has been growing in India. The rise in average annual population-weighted PM2.5 levels indicates that the Centre’s initiatives to help States reduce the burning of agricultural biomass and coal in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi have failed. The directions of the National Green Tribunal to Delhi, which were reviewed last year, could not end open burning of garbage and straw, or curb the urban use of diesel-powered vehicles. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the weighted national PM2.5 level estimated in the international report rose from 60 micrograms per cubic metre in 1990 (the acceptable limit) to 74 in 2015, with a steady rise since 2011. Weak policy on pollution is leading to the premature death of an estimated 1.1 million Indians annually, and the number is growing, in contrast to China’s record of reducing such mortality.

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‘India’s air pollution rivals China’s as world’s deadliest’

 

Several studies show long-term evidence of a steady deterioration in air quality in many countries, and South Asia, dominated by India, is today among the worst places to live. Although the central role played by burning of crop residues in causing pollution is well-known, and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute proposed steps to convert the waste into useful products such as enriched fodder, biogas, biofuel, compost and so on, little progress has been made. Last year, helpless farmers in the northern States who wanted to quickly switch from rice to wheat burnt the waste in the fields, in some cases defying local prohibitory orders. The government has no one to blame but itself, since it has not been able to supply affordable seeder machinery in sufficient numbers to eliminate the need to remove the straw. In a country producing about 500 million tonnes of crop residues annually, the issue needs to be addressed in mission mode. Easy access to cheap solar cookers and biogas plants will also cut open burning, and help the rural economy. Yet, there is no reliable distribution mechanism for these. On the health front, it is a matter of concern that in the most polluted cities, even moderate physical activity could prove harmful, rather than be beneficial, as new research indicates. India’s clean-up priorities need to shift gear urgently, covering both farm and city.

Source: The Hindu, 16-02-2017

Deaths due to air pollution rising faster in India than in China: Study

Vishwa Mohan

New Delhi:





Country Can't Continue In Denial: Experts

India has been in denial mode on linking premature deaths to air pollution in the absence of conclusive data, but a new comprehensive global report by two US-based institutes may now trigger a rethink. The report claims the country's worsening air pollution caused some 1.1 million premature deaths in 2015 and it now rivals China in having among the highest air pollution health burdens in the world.The State of Global Air 2017 report, released in Bos ton on Tuesday , claims longterm exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) -the most significant element of air pollution -contributed to 4.2 million premature deaths in the world in 2015 where both India and China to gether were responsible for over half of the total global deaths. Though the report sounds alarm bells for entire Asia, it paints a particlularly grim picture for India where the rate of increase of premature deaths due to air pollution is even higher than in China. It noted that while the early deaths related to PM2.5 in China has increased by 17.22% since 1990, it has increased by 48% in India.
Ozone-related early deaths in India are, in fact, 33% higher than those recorded for China. India's deepening pollution problem, which hit home with a vengeance after Diwali last year as Delhi and NCR woke up enveloped in smog that refused to lift for days, has a death toll second only to China's, and together the two nations acount for over half the world's deaths from pollution.
According to the State of Global Air 2017 report, released in Boston on Tuesday , as many as 2.54 lakh deaths occurred in 2015 on account of exposure to ozone and its impact on chronic lung disease.India accounts for the highest number of premature deaths due to ozone pollution, its toll 13 times higher than Bangladesh's, and 21 times higher than Pakistan's.
An interactive website on the report also highlights that 92% of the world's population lives in areas with unhealthy air. “We are seeing increasing air pollution problems worldwide, and this new report and website details why that air pollution is a major contributor to early death,“ said Dan Greenbaum, president of the Health Effects Institute (HEI), the research institute that designed and carried out the study . He said, “The trends we report show that we have seen progress in some parts of the world, but serious challenges remain“.
The report was prepared by HEI in cooperation with the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington and the University of British Columbia. Involving more than 2,000 researchers, the report factored in the role of an extensive set of behavioural, dietary and environmental risk factors for more than 300 diseases in 195 countries from 1990 onwards.
Referring to the findings of the report, Anumita Roychowdhury of the Centre for Science and Environment, said, “India can't afford to remain complacent or in denial. With so many people dying early and falling ill... due to particulate and ozone pollution, it is a state of health emergency . This demands nationwide intervention to ensure stringent mitigation and a roadmap to meet clean air standards“.

Source: Times of India, 15-02-2017

Air pollution a national problem

A Greenpeace report shows 90% of cities studied had pollution levels over prescribed standards

Delhi’s toxic air may be making news every few months. But pollution levels across the country are alarming too. A new report released here on Wednesday shows that over 90 per cent of the cities studied had pollution levels higher than the prescribed standards.

According to an analysis of 2015 data for 168 cities by Greenpeace India, 154 were found to have an average particulate matter level higher than the national standard. None of the cities studied had air quality matching the standard prescribed by the World Health Organisation. Hasan in Karnataka came closest to the standard.

Using data from various State pollution control boards, accessed from their websites and through RTI queries, the report ranked the cities based on the annual average of PM10, which are all particles less than 10 microns in diameter. These include the very harmful fine particles, PM2.5.

Top five

Unsurprisingly, Delhi was found to be be the most polluted city, with the annual average for PM10 being 268 micrograms per cubic metre, or over four times the 60 micrograms/cubic metre limit prescribed in the National Ambient Air Quality Standards of the Central Pollution Control Board.

Ghaziabad, Allahabad and Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh and Faridabad in Haryana followed closely, making for the worst five cities in terms of PM10 levels, the annual average concentrations being four times or more than the standard.

While air quality in North and Central India saw dangerous levels of particulate matter, South India appeared to have comparatively cleaner air. All 10 of the least polluted cities were in the South and the East: eight in Karnataka and one each in Odisha and Tamil Nadu.

“Due to the Himalayas and the cooler weather as well as big industrial clusters, the levels of pollution are higher in the North. Southern India has the benefit of the mixing of sea breeze. However, pollution is a national-level problem and has to be treated as such,” said Sunil Dahiya, one of the authors of the report and a campaigner with Greenpeace India.

The main culprit

Looking at the sources of pollution, the report found that fossil fuels were the biggest contributors to the particulate matter. “Whether it is in the transport sector or industries, the uncontrolled burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of air pollution,” said Mr. Dahiya.

Chennai, for instance, though on the coast, had an average PM10 level of 81 micrograms per cubic metre. A diesel-powered public transport system and power plant were to be blamed for the air pollution.

Though the report has looked at average city levels of PM10, some of the cities, like Delhi, have many more monitoring stations than the others. In the report, Greenpeace recommended setting up more monitoring stations in order to get a better picture of pollution levels.

Source: The Hindu, 12-01-2017

Air pollution killed 81k in Delhi & Mumbai, cost Rs 70,000cr in 2015'

Vinamrata Borwankar

Mumbai:





Air pollution contributed to a total of 80,665 premature deaths of adults over 30 years in Mumbai and Delhi in 2015, a two-fold jump from 1995, according to a new study at the Indian Institute of Technology , Bombay . In economic terms, air pollution cost the two cities $10.66 billion (approximately Rs 70,000 crore) in 2015, or about 0.71% of the country's gross domestic product.
The study has said the impact on health and productivity as a result of exposure to pollution and the consequ ent burden of respiratory ailments rose with every passing decade.
Researchers calculated impact using data on PM 10 (fine particulate matter mea suring 10 microns), population and death rates.
With its higher pollution levels, Delhi recorded more premature deaths due to ingestion of PM10 from vehicle exhaust, construction dust and other industrial processes. Casualties went up from 19,716 in 1995 to 48,651 in 2015.
In Mumbai, the compara tive figure rose from 19,291 to 32,014 in 20 years. Air pollution was also re sponsible for 23 million cases of restricted activity days (RAD) -either less productive days or days off work for individuals -in the commercial capital in 2015.The worsening quality of air in the city also led to 64,037 emergency room visits in 2015 by those stricken by respiratory ailments, up by 35.4% from 1995. In comparison, in Delhi, there were 29 million cases of RAD and 0.12 million emergency room visits in 2015.
The study's lead author, Kamal Jyoti Maji, said the impact of air pollution on health and productivity was evident in that the increase in cases and cost after 2005 was in line with the overall trend in pollution.
Pollution also cost the two cities as much as $10.66 billion in 2015, or about 0.71% of the country's GDP, a cost that's almost doubled since 1995.
The economic cost of PM10 exposure rose by around 60% in Mumbai from $2.68 million in 1995 to $4.26 billion in 2015.Cost to Delhi jumped by 135% in the same period to hit $6.39 billion, the study found.
One measure of health and longevity is called “disabilityadjusted life years“ (DALY), representing years lost due to various illness. This measure for illnesses caused by air pollution doubled in Delhi between 1995 and 2015 from 0.34 million to 0.75 million DALY. In Mumbai, that number rose from 0.34 million to 0.51million DALYs in the same period. To keep to current health outcomes in 2030, PM10 levels would have to decline by 44% in Mumbai and 67% in Delhi, the study said.
These estimates are likely to be an undercount of actual costs, mortality and morbidity , said the researchers, since the study looked only at the impact of PM10 and to a lesser extent PM2.5. The IIT study was published recently in the Environmental Science and Pollution Research Journal, and authored by research scholar Maji, IIT Bombay professor Anil Dikshit and Ashok Deshpande from the Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing, USA. In India, air pollution causes over half a million premature deaths annually and 20 million DALYs, according to WHO.

Source: Times of India, 19/01-2017

Green farms and clean air

The massive pollution cloud enveloping northern India every year is a good example of the disconnect between official policy and ground realities. It has been known for long that burning of agricultural waste in the northern States significantly contributes to the poor air quality in large parts of the Indo-Gangetic Basin, with local and cascading impacts felt from Punjab all the way to West Bengal. Harmful fine particulate matter measuring 2.5 mm in diameter (PM2.5) is among the pollutants released. Punjab responded to the issue with a prohibition on the burning of paddy straw, and the launch of initiatives aimed at better utilisation of biomass, including as a fuel to produce power. Yet, there is no mission mode approach to the annual crisis. The efforts do not match the scale of agricultural residues produced, for one, and fail to address farmers’ anxiety to remove the surplus from the fields quickly to make way for the next crop. The national production of crop waste is of the order of 500 million tonnes a year, with Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and West Bengal topping the list. Again, 80 per cent of straw from paddy is burnt in some States, impacting air quality and depriving croplands of nutrients.

It is an irony that the national capital and several other cities suffer crippling pollution in the post-monsoon and winter months partly due to biomass burning, when demand for fodder is rising and the surplus material could be used productively. Pilot projects to produce power using biomass demonstrated in Rajasthan, and mechanised composting and biogas production units of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute could be scaled up, and farmers given liberal support to deploy such solutions. Given the twin benefits of pollution abatement and better productivity, conservation agriculture needs to be popularised. This would encourage farmers to use newer low-till seeding technologies that allow much of the crop residues to remain on site, and curb the release of a variety of pollutants. Burning residues add greenhouse gases that cause global warming, besides pollutants such as carbon monoxide, ammonia, nitrous oxide and sulphur dioxide that severely affect human health. Sustained work is called for, given that higher agricultural productivity to meet food needs is inevitable, with a cascading increase in biomass volumes. The challenge is to identify measures to utilise it. By one estimate, if India can reach its own air quality standards for fine particulate matter from all sources, annual premature deaths can be cut by almost 10 per cent. A programme to cut pollution from waste-burning would be a good start.

Keywords: Air pollution, Air quality, Delhi air pollution, Diwali

Source: The Hindu, 3-11-2016