Casestudy: India air pollution Flashcards
(16 cards)
What is meant by air pollution?
Where chemical, physical or biological agents contaminate the area with particulates to an excessive extent - having impact on human health and the environment
How much has air pollution reduced life expectancy in India?
- Air pollution has reduced the average life expectancy of 660 million Indians by more than 3 years.
What percentage of India’s 1.4 billion population breathe polluted air above safe levels?
- 99% of the Indian population are exposed to air pollution above safe levels.
What is the source of air pollution in India?
- Particulates of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and ozone.
- This is particularly from motor vehicles, coal-burning power stations and factories, as India is an EDC.
- There are also indoor pollution sources: this is especially in rural areas where households lacking electricity depend on biomass fuels (animal dung and paraffin) for domestic purposes.
How many premature deaths is indoor pollution responsible for a year?
- Indoor air pollution, a result of low incomes, causes 1 million premature deaths per year.
What is the impact of particulate pollution on health in India?
- Air-borne particulates penetrate into peoples lungs, causing serious respiratory problems (asthma and bronchitis) as well as lung and heart disease.
- For example: Delhi’s populations risk of lung cancer has increased 70% from particulate pollution alone.
Out of the 15 most polluted cities in the world, how many were located in India?
12/15
Compared with less polluted rural areas, how much higher are
respiratory diseases in Delhi?
1.7x higher
What has been the impact of pollution increase in Delhi and Mumbai?
- In recent years, air pollution levels have increased, and Mumbai and Delhi (with other cities) have experienced a rise in pollution related cancers such as lung and bladder cancer.
- 1/5 cases of lung cancers in India are of non-smokers.
- This represents a 20% increase in the past 10 years.
In the whole of India, how many males and how many females fraction are diagnosed with cancer?
- Males: 1 in 68
- Females: 1 in 201
Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers in India, true or false?
True
What was the programme launched by India’s national government to control air pollution?
- The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).
What is the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP)’s function, and what has it done?
- The Function: Launched by the government to act as a long-term, national-level strategy to tackle the air pollution problem across India comprehensively.
- It has set a target of 20-30% reductions in Particulate Matter 10 (PM10) and PM2.5 concentrations, keeping 2017 as a base year for comparison.
- What it has done:
- Progress has been made in increasing the number of air quality monitoring stations.
- In Bihar, chimneys of brick kilns have been retro-fitted to reduce smoke emissions.
- 14 Indian cities are currently building rapid-transit metro stations to reduce cars.
- Subsides for petrol and oil are scrapped as 1/3 of all electricity is produced by noxious generators powered by petrol and diesel fuel.
- Restrictions are being placed on the burning of stubble in fields, curbing a major cause of pollution in rural areas.
What is a criticism of India’s National Clean Air Programme (NCAP)?
- NCAP can be criticized for targets set not being legally binding
- This means that if there are no penalties for disregarding the recommendations the outcome is often disappointing.
What are global initiatives used to deal with air pollutions impact on health?
- Global initiatives include the annual World Cancer Day, which draws attention to the current global cancer ‘epidemic’.
- Governments are pressed to take action to tackle these diseases
- The WHO has played a role, publishing a comprehensive report which sets priorities and outlines investment strategies to provide care for all.
What policies are set at global scale to tackle air pollution (climate change) ?
- Policies to tackle climate change, benefitting human health at national and local levels by cutting CO2 and other GHG emissions
- For example:
- The European Union has been active in combatting air pollution - member states have allocated €1.8 billion to support air quality measures under the European Structural and Investment Funds
- The European Commission proposed to invest €1 billion in 40 clean transport projects, upgrading Europe’s rail networks and creating alternate fuel infrastructure.
- The EU has the worlds largest cap-and-trade scheme, with each EU state setting targets to expand renewable energy and policies.
