Opinion Cities with worse air than Delhi fixed the problem: Nine things India needs to do to follow suit

A few smog towers, some dust suppression by spraying roads, knee-jerk construction bans, haphazard odd-even restrictions on traffic, and shutting down schools cannot address this wicked problem. Unless we address root causes across a fractured system of governance, financing and implementation, we have little hope of tackling a deepening air pollution crisis.

To begin, we need to acknowledge that this is a human-induced problem. Secondly, we have to realise that those most vulnerable — like children and older people, rural communities, and the urban poor — have contributed the least to the problem. Finally, we have to learn lessons from other countries that have successfully tackled this challenge, and act on evidence-backed options to address it.

While constraints like population growth and increasing urbanisation will persist, we have to focus on changing our production, transportation, consumption and waste management systems to address this challenge. Beijing, Mexico City, and even London did just that to address even worse air pollution than what we are facing today. Closer home, Delhi’s poor air also improved following a fuel switch from diesel to CNG in public transport in the 2000s.

We need to examine nine tightly coordinated interventions (listed below) that can enable a successful campaign against air pollution, over decades.

First, we need an integrated approach to limit emissions and reduce exposure across the value chain from production to consumption to recycling of goods and delivery of services. This means limiting emissions from coal-fired power plants, polluting industries and brick kilns as well as limiting wood, cow dung and garbage burning for cooking and heating for half a billion rural and some urban residents. We have made progress on this with the PM Ujjwala Yojana, but its recent impact is reported to have slowed.

Simultaneously, we need to limit crop residue burning by implementing known solutions like shifting to less water-intensive crops, altering irrigation arrangements, timing, harvesting, baling practices and building a wider year-round market for straw. Even though these solutions exist, livelihood imperatives, limited access to technology and widespread economic distress of farmers push back against them. The challenge is to establish coherent cross-sectoral policies and coordinated local to regional governance, along with monitoring systems, to enable them to work in practice, rather than just on paper.

Second, there must be a dramatic increase in the availability of affordable green urban public transport that enables universal last-mile connectivity like in Singapore, Hong Kong and most Chinese million-population cities, but at a fraction of their costs. If we can do this, it will be a win-win for climate, air quality, economic productivity and jobs that this new industry would create. The shift of many metro systems in India to renewable power is a step forward in the right direction. Expanding metro ridership, and improving and electrifying viable bus services can help limit the exponential growth of private two-wheelers and cars that are a key driver of urban air pollution.

Third, we need widespread electrification of buildings, vehicles and production processes, where possible. Fuel switching to renewables can both curb pollution and meet climate goals. However, the transport fuel switch is complex and requires large investments in new electric charging infrastructure and enhanced rail services across the country. China made such huge investments in the late ’90s to create the most efficient land-based transport infrastructure in the world. This will provide it significant competitive advantage for the rest of the century.

Fourth, adopting a regional or airshed approach is crucial to address pollution sources and impacts across an entire region rather than individual cities and towns. This approach was successfully deployed in Los Angeles, Mexico City and many mega-urban regions in China. India faces big challenges in doing this, as our systems of governance are fragmented both within urban areas and across states, with coordinated action an administrative nightmare.

Fifth, end-to-end construction and waste management is pivotal to reducing tonnes of dust and waste released in the air and water bodies. Recycling concrete, brick and stone from existing buildings will also limit the mining of our rivers of irreplaceable sand and the expansion of illegal quarries across the country. Tackling 150 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste generated annually, of which only one per cent is being recycled, could make a tangible difference to some cities.

Sixth, strong legislation and enforcement of regulations are necessary throughout the year, not just around Diwali. This is possible if courts stay determined, and the executive resists the temptation to dilute environmental regulation in the face of special interest group pressures.

Seventh, there must be wide-scale citizen mobilisation for awareness and education, which can influence lifestyle choices over decades. This helped turn the tide in Los Angeles in the 1960s and Mexico City in the 1990s and 2000s. We also have to rethink whether our “western” lifestyles are sustainable in our context, which the government’s LiFE initiative challenges us to do.

Eighth, the amount of funds needed to implement these coordinated actions and to strengthen the local government’s capacity to deliver them is not trivial. The precedent set by the Fifteenth Finance Commission by investing in health and solid waste management should extend to financing of climate change and air pollution reduction interventions in the Sixteenth Finance Commission.

Ninth, there is a need to deploy the best science and technology available to establish real-time monitoring systems that can even provide advance weekly forecasts. To this end, expanding and improving the System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) network, managed by IITM Pune, across airsheds of major cities in the country, can help us make rational decisions on alerts, interventions and investments.

Implementing all these measures together seems an impossible mountain to climb. But, this is exactly what Mexico City did in much worse metrological conditions between the 1990s to 2010s, and many Chinese regions have tried to do in the 2010s. Piecemeal approaches will only lead to the annual cycle of panic and shutdowns. With coordinated actions, we can address not only air pollution but also our urban climate and health goals together. The choices before us are relatively clear, the question is when we choose to act.

The writer is Director, Indian Institute for Human Settlements