According to the two leading policy experts in India, indoor air pollution has a greater health risk than outside pollution, and in certain cases, urban areas are cleaner than adjacent villages with higher levels of home pollution.
Principal Advisor, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Soumya Swaminathan, addressed the India Clean Air Summit (ICAS) 2024 and stated, “Studies done in Delhi have shown that women’s average exposure to high levels of black carbon (women who are mostly at home) is as much as auto-rickshaw passengers going around outdoor exposed to the ambient air pollution in Delhi, resulting in high systolic blood pressure.”
“Wherever state emissions have been measured, cities have contributed less than 20% of total emissions; household emissions, on the other hand, account for the majority, contributing between 20% and 40%. We are witnessing across the nation that, on occasion, cities are cleaner than the nearby villages where home air pollution is more prevalent,” she stated at the Center for Study of Science, Technology, and Policy think tank summit.
This makes a compelling case for extending the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) of India, which already concentrates on non-attainment cities.
In addition to being a major cause of morbidity and mortality, air pollution poses a serious danger to public health.
Other than PM2.5 and PM10, short-lived climatic pollutants that have the ability to do harm to the ecosystem and warm the atmosphere more than CO2 include black carbon, methane, ozone, and hydrocarbons. Low birthweight, asthma, emphysema, pneumonia, lung cancer, and chronic respiratory disorders are all linked to black carbon.
“In terms of shortening life expectancy, PM2.5 is responsible for roughly 2.3 years of life lost worldwide. Tobacco is right below that. Tobacco and international frameworks for control are receiving a lot of attention, but PM2.5 and commitments have received less attention overall, according to Swaminathan.
In addition to its detrimental effects on human health, air pollution has a large financial cost. A recent research by the World Bank showed that, in 2019, air pollution caused losses of around USD 8.1 trillion, or 6.1% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).
We frequently discuss the issue of air pollution, but research also demonstrates the compelling financial argument for taking steps to promote clean air. When it comes to return on investment, there are a lot of advantages to investing in air cleansing. We are aware that air pollution is not only harmful to human health but also to agriculture since it blocks sunlight from reaching crops. It is also detrimental to the economies of our nation and other nations because it discourages people from relocating to or living in such areas,” Swaminathan continued.
The primary obstacle to switching to clean cooking fuels, which can help lower home air pollution levels, according to Kalpana Balakrishnan, Director, WHO Collaborating Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, is money.
“If we give free LPG to women for two years, they are unlikely to shift back to biomass cooking even if you remove the subsidies,” she stated.
The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), which was initiated in May 2016, provided LPG cylinders to over 100 million Indian homes by the end of March 2023.
More than half of the homes that received new LPG cylinders under PMUY did not chose to refill them even once, according to government data.
Approximately 2.4 billion people worldwide, including 500 million in India, still do not have access to clean cooking options.
41% of people still cook with biomass, despite the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MOPNG) stating that home LPG “coverage” in the nation is 99.8%. This information was obtained from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) conducted in 2019–21.