A new report has indicated that our kids are gasping for fresh air with as many as one lakh children under age 5 succumbing to toxic pollutants every year. The bad air risk has been found to be higher for girl child as 9.6 out of 10,000 females die before attaining five years of age.
“Air pollution is responsible for 12.5 per cent of all deaths in India. Its impact on children is equally worrying. Over 1,00,000 children below the age of five die due to bad air in the country,” said the report released on the World Environment Day on Wednesday. The Day’s theme this year is ‘Beat air pollution’.
The report has been prepared by environment think tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
The think tank said the Government’s schemes to fight air pollution have not been successful yet, a fact also accepted and acknowledged by the Environment Ministry.
Earlier this year, global reports on air pollution revealed that over 1.2 million people died in India due to air pollution in 2017. According to a report by Greenpeace, New Delhi is the most polluted capital city in the world.
In 2013, India had pledged to phase out non-electric vehicles and achieve a target of cumulative sale of 15-16 million hybrid and electric vehicles by 2020.
However, as per the CSE report, the number of e-vehicles till May 2019 was 0.28 million, much behind the set goal. “While India was one of the first countries to pledge the phasing out of non-electric vehicles, its national scheme to promote the sale of e-vehicles is yet to pick up.
“Against the target of 5-6 million e-vehicles by 2020, the county had 0.28 million vehicles till May 2019,” the SoE, an annual quantified statement of environmental statistics and analysis, said.
The study, which has covered wide range of topics, also said that the country is yet to identify indicators to track its climate change preparedness, a concern which is under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030.
“Climate change poses the biggest economic threat in the world today and features prominently in the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030. With just 10 years to go, India is yet to identify indicators to track its climate change preparedness. Of the 13 SDGs the country is tracking, indicators exist for only a handful of the targets,” it said.