India air pollution deaths poised to exceed China’s （517 words）

By Kiran Stacey in New Delhi

-----------------------------------------------------

India is on the verge of overtaking China as the country with the most deaths caused by air pollution, the world’s biggest environmental killer, according to research published on Tuesday.

In 2015 both countries suffered about 1.1m premature deaths as a result of polluted air, with India just 18,000 behind China, the US-based research organisation Health Effects Institute found, making air pollution the fifth-highest cause of death among all health risks.

In India, a combination of households burning solid fuels for cooking, coal-fired power plants, crop burning, industrial emissions and vehicle fumes contribute to some of the highest airborne particulate counts in the world.

For years, China has endured more deaths than any other country as a result of exposure to PM2.5 pollution — particulate matter measuring less than 2.5 millionths of a metre in diameter.

But while air pollution-related deaths in China have come down slightly in the past decade, they have increased in India, from about 900,000 annually in 2005 to just under 1.1m in 2015, the HEI report says.

Worldwide, air pollution caused 4.2m deaths in 2015, a 7.5 per cent jump from a decade earlier. Toxic air now kills almost as many people as high cholesterol and even more than excessive salt or being overweight, according to the study.

“There is a growing worldwide consensus — among the World Health Organization, World Bank, International Energy Agency and others — that air pollution poses a major global public health challenge,” said Robert O’Keefe, HEI vice-president. “Nowhere is that risk more evident than in the rapidly growing economies of Asia.”

In India, the worst pollution is often found in New Delhi, the country’s capital and largest city, due to a combination of climatic conditions, rapidly increasing vehicle use and nearby heavy industry. A study by the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment found the city’s Badarpur coal plant was one of the most polluting in the country.

In October, the pollution count in the capital went off the charts after celebrations for the Hindu festival Diwali filled the air with smoke for several days and eventually helped contribute to a court-imposed ban on fireworks.

WHO figures show that from 2011 to 2015, New Delhi had by far the highest levels of coarse particulates of any megacity in the world, with levels more than double those in Beijing.

Experts say the improvement in Beijing has been achieved partly because air pollution there is now treated as a public health emergency. This means the government can order cars off the road and shut down schools and parts of industry if particulates are predicted to remain high for at least three days.

In New Delhi, countermeasures are more sporadic. In November, Arvind Kejriwal, the city’s chief minister, ordered schools to close for three days, halted construction and demolition work for five days and shut down the Badarpur coal plant for 10 days. However, he has not repeated last year’s “odd-even” experiment of only allowing cars to travel on alternate days based on licence plate numbers. A subsequent study found the move had helped cap the rise in particulate emissions.