Environment minister Anil Madhav Dave
overlooks Greenpeace research stating 1.2m Indians die each year from airborne
pollutants
By Michael Safi
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The Greenpeace report
found no cities in northern India met international air quality
standards. Photograph:
Rajat Gupta/EPA
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India’s environment minister has been accused
of playing down the health risks of the country’s extremely polluted air by
claiming, contrary to research, that there is no conclusive data available
linking “death exclusively with air pollution”.
The environmental group Greenpeace released a
report in January citing Global Burden of Disease (GBD) research that estimated
nearly 1.2 million Indians die each year due to high concentrations of airborne
pollutants such as dust, mould spores, arsenic, lead, nickel and the carcinogen
chromium.
It found that no cities in northern India,
and only a handful of regions in the rest of the country, met international air
quality standards, with pollution rates particularly high in the capital,
Delhi, and the neighbouring state Uttar Pradesh.
Asked about the report in India’s upper
house, the environment minister, Anil Madhav Dave, said on Tuesday: “There is
no conclusive data available in the country to establish direct
correlation-ship of death exclusively with air pollution.”
He said the health effects of air pollution
were a “synergistic manifestation of factors which include food habits,
occupational habits, socio-economic status, medical history, immunity, heredity
etc of the individuals”.
“Air pollution could be one of the triggering
factors for respiratory associated ailments and diseases,” he added.
Sunil Dahiya, a campaigner with Greenpeace
India, said the remarks were contrary to the findings of the GBD survey, a
comprehensive global research program that monitors the causes of illness and
death in every country in the world.
The 2015 edition of the survey estimated that
3,283 Indians died each day due to outdoor air pollution, making for around
nearly 1.2 million deaths annually. Dahiya said the air pollution estimate
controlled for “all imaginable risk factors, from obesity, to smoking and
insufficient consumption of fresh fruit … and many other risks”.
“The number of deaths attributed to air
pollution in the study are only due to air pollution,” he said.
Researchers have argued that the frequent
inhalation of tiny pollutants in particular may increase the likelihood of
blood clots, damage the body’s ability to oxygenate blood and inflame tissue in
the nervous system.
India has been slower than its neighbour,
China, to address the problem of toxic air, which in Delhi is attributed to a
range of sources including road dust, vehicle exhaust fumes, open fires,
industrial emissions and the burning of crop residues in neighbouring states.
But India has taken steps in the past two
years to grow its network of air-quality monitors, push cleaner fuels, upgrade
vehicle emissions standards and has mandated – but not yet fully rolled out –
new technology to limit emissions from coal-fired power stations.
While acknowledging the problem, Indian
government bodies have been sensitive about accepting international findings on
the issue, rejecting a 2014 World Health Organisation study that declared Delhi
the world’s most polluted city.
It has also repeatedly had run-ins with
Greenpeace, temporarily freezing the NGO’s funding and accusing it of being one
of several groups conspiring to stymie India’s economic growth.
Polash Mukherjee, a researcher with the
Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, said different groups came up
with different estimates of the number of deaths caused by air pollution
because of varying methodologies or interpretations. “But what is undeniable is
that there is an effect on the health of people,” he said.
The burden of harm from air pollution falls
mainly on the poor, the elderly and children. A report from Unicef in October
estimated that poor air quality contributed to the deaths of 600,000 children
around the world each year.