The warnings cannot be starker. The WHO, in its latest report, is pointing to a global “public health emergency” that will lead to incalculable deaths and disease from the world’s fastest growing phenomenon — urban pollution. WHO’s latest data of 2,000 cities show great deterioration has taken place since 2014. The factors behind such pollution have already been established — transport emissions, concrete dust from construction, power station emissions and wood burning in stoves. The latest revelation is that the toxic clouds of smog sitting over cities are clearly visible from the International Space Station.
The UN figures point to some 3.3 million premature deaths every year from urban pollution. If China leads the world with 1.4 million such deaths, India is a deadly second with 645,000 deaths. At least 20 Indian cities figure in the top 100 polluted cities of the world. While pollution was known to cause asthma and pneumonia, the medical world now believes it also causes heart and blood circulation problems, even dementia.
So acute is the problem that even Arvind Kejriwal’s odd-even solution seems to offer some relief even if quantitatively it’s not as much as the studies suggest. Unless India abandons diesel, perpetrator of pollution by nitrous oxide, we will be struggling to make any impact on the miasma surrounding our cities.
