China is a good example of how it has balanced environmental protection and economic growth. India must learn from Beijing to tackle air pollution
Air pollution has become an unwitting part of our daily lives along with its health and economic consequences. This, despite the tremendous efforts being made to bring down the scale of pollution through path-breaking measures aided by researched scientific studies. Today, the entire world’s attention will be focused on air pollution as it happens to be the theme of this year’s World Environment Day, which is being hosted by China. World Environment Day, celebrated since 1974, is the United Nations day for encouraging worldwide awareness and action to protect the environment.
Since its inception, the World Environment Day has grown to become a global platform for public outreach that is celebrated in over 100 countries. Above all, this day has become “people’s day” for doing something to take care of the Earth. That “something” can be local, national or global. This year’s theme of ‘air pollution’ is apt as this issue has been causing immense concern to the well-being of humanity across the world. Globally, it is estimated that air pollution is responsible for 3.1 million premature deaths worldwide every year and 3.2 per cent of the global burden of disease.
Epidemiological studies revealed that there is a link between air pollution and diseases with public health importance such as cardiovascular diseases for instance, stroke and ischemic heart disease, cancers and respiratory diseases. Respiratory diseases related to air pollution include acute respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and asthma. India is one of the main sufferers of deteriorating air quality levels. Though the Government is making efforts all-year round to mitigate its affects, no noticeable dip in air pollution levels have been registered. This year, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has released a song titled, ‘Hawa Aane De’ to spread awareness among the general public regarding air pollution and its adverse effects on the eve of the World Environment Day. Even the traffic police has been roped in to create the required consciousness regarding air pollution and associated problems.
The World Environment Day is also referred to as the ‘Action Day’ when people around the world are expected to take meaningful action in their own way possible and do their bit for planet Earth. The day symbolises the efforts to save the environment and is the biggest annual event for positive environmental action. However, the current state of dismal air quality levels and withering environment is indicative of the fact that intense and productive action is needed almost on a daily basis to save our ambient air quality. In this regard, perhaps, it is not coincidental that China is hosting this year’s ‘World Environment Day’. The country is increasingly being recognised by the world for its hard and aggressive domestic stand on matters pertaining to environmental conservation.
China was at the receiving end of severe air pollution levels till recently but concentrated and non-negotiable policies are slowly turning the tide in its favour. Besides, China is also planning to adopt more efficient and targetted measures during its continuing campaign against pollution by not relaxing the targets or easing crackdown on violators. One of the first measures adopted by the Chinese Government was to give autonomy to regional pollution control authorities to curb the production of heavy industries in their region, depending upon the local air quality level. This helped it bring an end to the earlier practice of imposing nation-wide production curbs on heavy industries in response to spike in air pollution levels in some regional areas. This impacted the economy negatively than actually curbing the pollution levels.
The bevy of policy initiatives taken up by China has made the world sit up and take notice. The efforts of China to control the pollution levels are nearly 20-year-old and according to a research conducted by UN Environment and the Beijing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau (BEE), it is evident how Beijing’s air quality management programme has evolved and makes for a sustainable strategy for the future. The report by BEE specifically mentions, “This improvement in air quality didn’t happen by accident. It was the result of an enormous investment of time, resources and political will.”
Figures of improvement in air quality speak for themselves. Reeling under the pressure of ever worsening air quality, Beijing adopted systematic and intensive measures in the beginning of 2013. Thanks to unwavering and concentrated efforts by the Government — which was fully supported by the disciplined population — by the end of 2017, fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) had fallen by 35 per cent and by 25 per cent in the surrounding Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Over this period, annual emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matter (PM10) and volatile organic compounds in Beijing decreased by 83 per cent, 43 per cent, 55 per cent and 42 per cent respectively. Much of this reduction came from measures to control coal-fired boilers, provide cleaner domestic fuels and industrial restructuring. This by itself is an area of learning for India.
What is the backbone of this firm Chinese resolve to bring down air pollution levels? It is definitely not a set of token efforts played mainly for optics by the Government as in other countries. In fact, Beijing’s air quality management system is supported by a comprehensive monitoring, evaluation, pollution source apportionment and emission inventories. It also contains wide-ranging legal standards and strict environmental law enforcement. Air quality work is supported by economic policies, public participation and coordination on air pollution prevention and control in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. These robust networks of actionable laws and policies have helped China achieve something that other nations suffering from falling air quality standards are still grappling with. Without doubt, Beijing’s efforts, achievements, experiences and lessons in air pollution control over the last 20 years are worth analysing and sharing in order to progress global environmental governance.
Beijing has achieved impressive air quality improvements in a short span. It is a good example of how to balance environmental protection and economic growth. India is ambitiously targetting aggressive economic growth that might outpace Chinese economy eventually. But what will this progress cost us? A country that loses its environment and gains economic prosperity has only won in short-term and lost in long-term. Therefore a balance is of outmost importance. The World Environment Day in India must come to mean the significance of this balance.
India must rejig its environmental priorities and ensure that the annual World Environment Day is utilised for stock-taking and assessment of efforts taken in the last whole year. As a first step, the new Government must set actionable goals that are time-bound and specify penalties for relevant authorities for not adhering to the deadlines. People, too, need to be held accountable for the environment and sufficient measures must be envisioned and implemented that seek to awake environmental consciousness of the common man and also ensure that willful and deliberate polluters of environment are exemplarily punished. Would these measures be harsh for India? Maybe not if one factors in the suffering undergone by the environment and our fragile ecosystem till now.
It is time to quantify the progress made by us in safeguarding the environment. Celebration of a specific day by caring for the planet for that particular day is woefully inadequate. This has to be a year-long effort till we reclaim our environment. As China has shown, this is very much possible.
(The writer is an environmental journalist)
