London was once known as “the big smoke”. Osaka, Japan, was the “smoke capital.” Los Angeles was the “smog capital of the world”. And most recently, Beijing gained notice as a major pollution capital. While cities are hotbeds for vibrant culture, economicactivity and growth, they too often become air pollution capitals during times of rapid development. Delhi, like many of India’s cities, is no different.
During their time of development, each of these major cities felt the pain of pollution: greater rates of sickness, lost work time and lost loved ones. Each chose to confront this pollution, resulting in measurably cleaner skies and healthier citizens. Now, India faces the same choice. While India’s policymakers will need to find the right balance between improvements in health and costs to industry, history shows that, with the right policies, it can improve its citizen’s health and continue to prosper.
The first step is for India to acknowledge that the heavy smog that too often blanketsDelhi and other Indian cities is harming citizens’ health. In a recent study, we foundhigh pollution cuts most Indian lives short by three years. Our study is just one of many linking pollution to health threats. In a study commissioned by the Central Pollution Control Board, scientists from India’s top cancer institutes tracked 11,000 schoolchildren in Delhi and other cities for three years. They found that particulate pollution had likely caused irreversible reduction in the children’s lung function. Now, doctors are telling patients to leave the city before their conditions worsen.
It doesn’t need to be this way. We’ve found that improved compliance with Indian air quality standards for airborne particulate matter would save 2.1 billion life-years for more than half of the population exposed to this deadly pollution. And those standards are weaker than what the World Health Organisation recommends. So, if the standards were stricter, it would be possible to save even more life-years.
There are many useful ideas India could consider that have been successful elsewhere in the world in reducing pollution without high costs. One way to improve compliance with current standards could be for India to increase its use of technology in monitoring air pollution emissions from industrial plants, and to make this data easily accessible to the public (for example, by putting it online). Intermittent sampling of industries, done once or twice a year, is not enough for regulators to get a clear picture of who is polluting the most.
Further, there are not enough monitoring stations for the public to learn about pollution in the air they breathe. As a point of comparison, Beijing has 35 monitoring stations, while Delhi has only 21, and too many Indian cities have even
