Air pollution killed more than a million people in India in 2019

Pollution kills, we can never repeat it enough. In the second most populous country in the world, India, the effects of air pollution are devastating. In a study conducted by researchers from Boston College Global Pollution and Health Observatory, Indian Council of Medical Research and Indian Foundation for Public Health, researchers believe that air pollution in India has caused 1.67 million deaths in 2019, the highest number of pollution-related deaths in any country in the world. The results were published on December 21, 2020 in The Lancet Planetary Health.

Dependence on wood and fossil fuels

According to researchers, India’s 1.67 million air pollution deaths accounted for 17.8% of all deaths in the country in 2019. Worse, air pollution caused 36.8 billion dollars of losses, or 1.36% of Indian GDP. Related deaths could, according to the study, “hamper India’s aspiration to become a $5 trillion economy by 2024. A successful reduction in air pollution in India would bring substantial benefits to both people’s health and the economy .”

The number of deaths attributed to air pollution in India in a single year is more than ten times that of Covid-19. The consequences will be long-lasting if no effort is made to preserve the health of this country of 1.35 billion people. “It also has a profound effect on the next generation of Indianssays Philip Landrigan, professor of biology at Boston College and director of the Global Observatory on Pollution and Health. It increases the future risk of heart disease, diabetes and respiratory disease for today’s children when they become adults. It reduces the IQ of children. It will be very difficult for India to progress socially or economically if it does nothing to address this problem.”

According to the report, air pollution is mostly indoors and is caused by poorly ventilated kitchens and the use of wood and charcoal to cook food, although its use has fallen by 64.2% since 1990. Of course, ambient pollution is not to be outdone, since at the same time, fine particles have increased by 115.3% and ozone pollution has increased by 139.2%. These increases in the number of deaths from ambient air pollution reflect rising emissions from cars, trucks and buses, as well as the widespread use of coal to generate electricity in India. Researchers estimate that air pollution-related costs to India’s healthcare system amounted to nearly $12 billion in 2019.

By analyzing the air quality state by state, the researchers found large disparities. Thus, depending on the state, the variation in pollution can range from one to three. Southern Indian states have put in place policies to reduce air pollution compared to northern states, where pollution and its consequences have had greater consequences in terms of mortality and economic costs .

Better tools to reduce pollution

“There are many solutions and examples of successful pollution reduction policies that can be developed to meet the specific needs of the country and its states.emphasizes Philip Landrigan. China, a country with a similar size population and equally ambitious economic goals, adopted pollution control targets in its latest five-year plan and is making progress on pollution control.”

His colleague Gautam Yadama, dean of the School of Social Work at Boston College, goes further in his analysis to save as many people in India as possible from air pollution. “One of our challenges is to provide the poor with better access to clean appliances and fuels that can be used sustainably under a variety of real-world conditions. The more these devices are developed and tested in collaboration with communities — especially women, the end users of the devices — the more likely they will be used.” The best solution to save the population therefore lies in education.