Poorest 10 percent of Indians at higher risk of dying from air pollution than rich-India News, Firstpost

Delhi underwent a dramatic transformation for a period last year when restrictions were imposed, with residents reveling in azure blue skies and clean air. Scientists say massive drops in some pollutants due to blockages inevitably averted deaths. Image Credit: Imaggeo / Prakhar Misra

The poorest 10 percent of Indians are at nine times greater risk of dying from air pollution than the richest 10 percent, according to a study released Monday.

Fine particles (PM2.5) generated by burning fossil fuels, agricultural practices and wood-burning stoves contribute to many health problems and are the cause of most of the eight million air pollution-related deaths every year in the world.

Previous research has shown that the wealthiest individuals bear a disproportionate responsibility for air pollution due to their consumption-oriented lifestyles.

Researchers based in Europe and the United States wanted to see how wealth is linked to exposure to air pollution in the second most populous country on Earth.

They looked at spending data for different income groups and used a sophisticated computer model to estimate the pollution that such spending habits were likely to have produced.

They produced a map of anticipated air pollution and then used it to generate estimates of associated health impacts.

Unsurprisingly, the team found that while wealthy individuals contributed the most to air pollution levels, poorer individuals suffered the most.

The study, published in the journal Sustainability of nature, estimated that air pollution from indoor and outdoor sources contributed to the deaths of 1.19 million people in 2010, the latest year for which emissions and expenditure data were directly comparable.

They also defined a new pollution inequity index, which measured the ratio of premature deaths to the amount of ambient air pollution that each income group contributed.

For the top 10 percent, the index predicted about 6.3 premature deaths per unit of pollution it contributed. For the poorest 10 percent, that figure was 54.7 deaths, almost nine times higher.

To test the best ways to reduce air inequalities, the team looked at two scenarios: one in which clean technology was applied to all sources of pollution except stoves, and the other in which solid fuel stoves were replaced by electric stoves.

Perhaps unexpectedly, modeling showed that the second scenario – simply getting rid of wood and charcoal stoves – had the greatest reduction in air pollution-related deaths.

“A unique intervention that would effectively tackle air pollution-related deaths, especially for the poor: providing cheap and clean stoves and cooking fuels,” said Fabian Wagner, lead author of the study by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. AFP.

With millions of Indians leaving rural areas for cities in search of work since 2010, Wagner said it was difficult to quantify the net effect of air pollution on this migration.

“Urbanization leads to higher population densities – that is, more people are exposed to the same bad air,” he said. “Therefore, the total exposure may increase.”