Delhi AQI: Why is the capital of India behind Beijing in the struggle for air?

 Delhi AQI: Why is the capital of India behind Beijing in the struggle for air?

The two heavily populated Asian capitals have long struggled with the problem of hazardous smoke blowing over their towns.

On some days, the air tasted like smoke, shrouding Delhi and Beijing, two cities home to over 20 million people, in an orange-grey mist that made people feel as if they were in a bad dream. Beijing residents even used the term "airpocalypse" to describe this catastrophe.

Delhi is experiencing that time of year again, while Beijing is breathing much easier.

A mixture of gasses and particulate matter, or PM2.5—particles so tiny they may enter the lungs deeply—hang over landlocked Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world. As. Air quality is deteriorated by low wind speeds that trap contaminants in the lower atmosphere.

Authorities pulled diesel cars off the road, stopped construction, requested people to work from home, temporarily shuttered schools, and outlawed firecrackers. Putting most of them into practice in India's chaotic democracy is challenging. People puff, wheeze, and cough, yet life go on.

The app indicated that on Monday morning, the air quality index, or AQI, was rising over 520 in several locations. (Anything under 50 is regarded as excellent.)

Beijing's sky was blue that morning, and the city's AQI rating was less than one-fifth that of Delhi. Beijing, along with the rest of China, has been waging a relentless battle on air pollution since 2013 by using a number of command-and-control strategies.

Among other things, an ambitious action plan would outlaw the production of new coal-fired power plants, phase out the use of coal for home heating, increase fuel and engine regulations for diesel trucks, and phase out older, more environmentally harmful vehicles. Proceeded. For short excursions, people were urged to convert to electric vehicles and bicycles.

Beijing has been working hard to improve air quality inside the city, but major advances over the last ten years have only been achieved when Beijing has concentrated its efforts outside the city boundaries, according to Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, located in Helsinki. reached beyond.

He informed me that authorities had more remarkable success by creating a "major control zone," which included key pollution sources and industrial clusters outside the city. Beijing allocated more than $2.6 billion in 2017 to combat air pollution, up from $430 million (£350 million) in 2013.

The outcomes have been outstanding. The Air Quality of Life Index, or AQLI, created by the Energy Pollution Institute at the University of Chicago, shows that since 2013, air pollution has decreased by almost 40% nationally and by roughly 50% in Beijing. "Beijing was formerly highly high on the index of air pollution. Yet there has been a noticeable improvement. There's a big movement away from coal and toward gas and renewable energy. "It is simpler to purchase electric vehicles than gasoline-powered vehicles," Chim. Li, an Economist Intelligence Unit analyst in China, informed me.

Analysts surmise that Delhi's twenty-year endeavor to enhance air quality has yielded certain outcomes. The city has decommissioned coal-fired power plants, eliminated formal polluting businesses, implemented the biggest natural gas-based public transit program in the world, removed older commercial cars off the road, and tightened emissions regulations. and constructed a productive metro.

Has the city's air quality been impacted by these measures? Indeed, they have, according to Anumita Roychowdhury, the executive director of the Center for Science and Environment in Delhi and an expert on air pollution. The long-term trends in Delhi's air quality indicate that the pollution level is not increasing annually. In actuality, it is falling. This indicates that Delhi is flattening the pollution curve and has stabilized the issue." However, he informed me that Delhi would also need to cut PM2.5 levels by an additional 60% in order to satisfy clean air requirements.

However, owing to partisan politics, poor policy formulation, and poor planning, Delhi's battle against air pollution is failing.

Studies reveal that automobile emissions account for almost half of Delhi's pollution. Dust from building sites, garbage burning, and smoke from coal-fired businesses come next.

Depending on the wind direction and speed, burning agricultural leftovers in nearby Punjab and Haryana—a frequent practice during harvest season—can account for up to 25% of Delhi's air pollution during the winter. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is now holding the adjacent state of Punjab, which is led by the opposition political party, accountable for their failure to address the issue.

Delhi has lowered the number of automobiles on its roads—roughly 8 million—by more than a third from the figures from 2015. This is due to the prohibition on older vehicles. Nonetheless, in a city where the urban layout is biased against cycling and pedestrians and in favor of automobiles, vehicle emissions continue to be the dominant source of pollution.

Although the Delhi Metro is the longest and busiest metro system in India, spanning approximately 400 km (248 mi), last-mile connection to homes and offices remains inadequate. Ironically, despite the fact that 14% of the 7,000 public buses in the city are electric, bus ridership is actually falling as a result of use issues. Even though the Delhi Master Plan set a goal of using public transportation for 80% of motorized trips, the separation of the bus and metro networks has made it more difficult to meet this goal.

According to Ms. Roychowdhury, "even if you have a solution, you can't make it work because you haven't designed it properly."

Another thing impeding growth is a lack of regional planning. While debates center on Delhi's pollution, smoke also obscures other towns in northern India, eastern Pakistan, and the enormous Indo-Gangetic plain that includes portions of Bangladesh and Nepal. Research indicates that Bihar often has greater air pollution levels than Delhi, yet there is little conversation about this. The topic of discussion cannot be limited to Delhi. The whole area must be included, according to Ms. Roychowdhury.

Here, experts say Beijing made the correct decision. It introduced a regional strategy including adjacent provinces and sought to cut air pollution by 25% by 2017. Fine particle concentrations in Beijing and the surrounding region decreased by 35% and 25%, respectively, between 2013 and 2017. A United Nations assessment states that "no other city or region on the planet has achieved such a feat."

Beijing transitioned from diesel and coal considerably more quickly than Delhi. "In a democracy (like India), whatever decisions Beijing has made are difficult," Ms. Roychowdhury asserts. He suggested Delhi, as well as India, examine the methods used by US and European cities to reduce air pollution. Beijing is also three times more polluted than Los Angeles, the most polluted city in the United States, and falls short of being among the cleanest cities on Earth, despite advancements, according to AQLI.

Delhi is pressed for time. Over the next three years, we must put everything into practice. India and Delhi must be ready for disruptive activity, according to Ms. Roychowdhury.