Today’s article is from “The New York Times”
and talks about something that’s always been of a concern to those of us living
in New Delhi – the air quality and pollution levels.
Beijing’s Bad Air Would Be Step Up for Smoggy
Delhi
By GARDINER
HARRIS JAN. 25, 2014
People made a fire in New
Delhi to keep warm on Friday, one of many sources of pollution that makes the
city’s air among the world’s worst. Sami Siva for The New York Times
NEW DELHI — In mid-January,
air pollution in Beijing was so bad that the government issued urgent health
warnings and closed four major highways, prompting the panicked buying of air
filters and donning of face masks. But in New Delhi, where pea-soup smog
created what was by some measurements even more dangerous air, there were few
signs of alarm in the country’s boisterous news media, or on its effervescent
Twittersphere.
Despite Beijing’s widespread
reputation of having some of the most polluted air of any major city in the
world, an examination of daily pollution figures collected from both cities
suggests that New Delhi’s air is more laden with dangerous small particles of
pollution, more often, than Beijing’s. Lately, a very bad air day in Beijing is
about an average one in New Delhi.
The
United States Embassy in Beijing sent out warnings in mid-January,
when a measure of harmful fine particulate matter known as PM2.5 went above 500, in
the upper reaches of the measurement scale, for the first time this year. This
refers to particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, which is
believed to pose the greatest health risk because it penetrates deeply into
lungs.
Take a Deep Breath
Daily peak density of PM2.5, a harmful particulate matter. The World
Health Organization recommends a daily mean exposure limit of 25 micrograms per
cubic meter.
JAN. 25, 2014
By The New York Times
Sources: Delhi Pollution Control Committee; U.S. Embassy in Beijing
But for the first three weeks
of this year, New Delhi’s average daily peak reading of fine particulate matter
from Punjabi Bagh, a monitor whose readings are often below those of other city
and independent monitors, was 473, more than twice as high as the average of
227 in Beijing. By the time pollution breached 500 in Beijing for the first
time on the night of Jan. 15, Delhi had already had eight such days. Indeed,
only once in three weeks did New Delhi’s daily peak value of fine particles
fall below 300, a level more than 12 times the exposure limit recommended by
the World Health Organization.
“It’s always puzzled me that
the focus is always on China and not India,” said Dr. Angel Hsu, director of
the environmental performance measurement program at the Yale Center for
Environmental Law and Policy. “China has realized that it can’t hide behind its
usual opacity, whereas India gets no pressure to release better data. So there
simply isn’t good public data on India like there is for China.”
Experts have long known that India’s air is among the worst in the
world. A recent analysis by Yale researchers found that seven of the 10
countries with the worst air pollution exposures are in South Asia. And
evidence is mounting that Indians pay a higher price for air pollution than
almost anyone. A recent study showed that Indians have the world’s weakest
lungs, with far less capacity than Chinese lungs. Researchers are beginning to
suspect that India’s unusual mix of polluted air, poor sanitation and
contaminated water may make the country among the most dangerous in the world
for lungs.
India has the world’s highest death rate because of chronic
respiratory diseases, and it has more deaths from asthma than any other nation,
according to the World Health Organization. A recent study found that half of
all visits to doctors in India are for respiratory problems, according to
Sundeep Salvi, director of the Chest Research Foundation in Pune.
Clean Air Asia, an advocacy
group, found that another common measure of pollution known as PM10, for
particulate matter less than 10 micrometers in diameter, averaged 117 in
Beijing in a six-month period in 2011. In New Delhi, the Center for Science and
Environment used government data and found that an average measure of PM10 in
2011 was 281, nearly two-and-a-half times higher.
Perhaps most worrisome,
Delhi’s peak daily fine particle pollution levels are 44 percent higher this
year than they were last year, when they averaged 328 over the first three
weeks of the year. Fine particle pollution has been strongly linked with premature death, heart
attacks, strokes and heart failure. In October,
the World Health Organization declared that it caused lung cancer.
BREATHLESS Amanat Devi Jain, 4, receives twice-daily
breathing treatments for her asthma. Her father said the family breathed
normally whenever they left India. Graham Crouch for The New York Times
The United States Embassy in
Beijing posts on Twitter the readings of its air monitor,
helping to spur awareness of the problem. The readings have more than 35,000
followers. The United States does not release similar readings from its New
Delhi Embassy, saying the Indian government releases its own figures.
In China, concerns about air
quality have transfixed many urban residents, and some government officials say
curbing the pollution is a priority.
But in India, Delhi’s newly
elected regional government did not mention air pollution among its 18 priorities, and India’s environment minister quit in December amid widespread criticism that
she was delaying crucial industrial projects. Her replacement, the government’s
petroleum minister, almost immediately approved several projects that could add
considerably to pollution. India and China strenuously resisted pollution limits in global
climate talks in Warsaw in November.
Frank Hammes, chief executive
of IQAir, a Swiss-based maker of air filters, said his company’s sales were
hundreds of times higher in China than in India.
“In China, people are
extremely concerned about the air, especially around small children,” Mr.
Hammes said. “Why there’s not the same concern in India is puzzling.”
In multiple interviews,
Delhiites expressed a mixture of unawareness and despair about the city’s
pollution levels. “I don’t think pollution is a major concern for Delhi,” said
Akanksha Singh, a 20-year-old engineering student who lives on Delhi’s
outskirts in Ghaziabad, adding that he felt that Delhi’s pollution problems
were not nearly as bad as those of surrounding towns.
A smoggy New Delhi. Sami Siva
for The New York Times
In 1998, India’s Supreme Court
ordered that Delhi’s taxis, three-wheelers and buses be converted to compressed
natural gas, but the resulting improvements in air quality were short-lived as
cars flooded the roads. In the 1970s, Delhi had about 800,000 vehicles; now it
has 7.5 million, with 1,400 more added daily.
“Now the air is far worse than
it ever was,” said Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director of the Center for
Science and Environment.
Indians’ relatively poor lung
function has long been recognized, but researchers assumed for years that the
difference was genetic.
Then a 2010
study found that the children of Indian immigrants who were born and
raised in the United States had far better lung function than those born and
raised in India.
“It’s not genetics; it’s
mostly the environment,” said Dr. MyLinh Duong, an assistant professor of
respirology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
In a study published in October, Dr. Duong compared
lung tests taken in 38,517 healthy nonsmokers from 17 countries who were
matched by height, age and sex. Indians’ lung function was by far the lowest
among those tested.
All of this has led some
wealthy Indians to consider leaving.
Annat Jain, a private equity
investor who returned to India in 2001 after spending 12 years in the United
States, said his father died last year of heart failure worsened by breathing
problems. Now his 4-year-old daughter must be given twice-daily breathing
treatments.
“But whenever we leave the
country, everyone goes back to breathing normally,” he said. “It’s something my
wife and I talk about constantly.”
Malavika Vyawahare contributed
reporting from New Delhi, and Edward Wong from Beijing.
A version of this article appears in print on January 26, 2014, on page
A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Beijing’s Bad Air Would Be Step
Up for Smoggy Delhi.
