Revision as of 17:22, 24 February 2016

India and the world, Top 10 emitters of climate-damaging greenhouse gases; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, October 1, 2015

India and the world: The main countries responsible for CO2 emissions between 1850 and 2011, and their share; as well as likely emissions till 2030; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, November 30, 2015

Measures taken by Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan to limit air pollution; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, December 6, 2015

Stoves (chulhas) pollute villages

The Times of India Jan 09 2016

Ambient air pollution in India: 2015

Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar

New Study Calls For Integrated Approach That Focuses On Reducing Exposure Not Emissions

Who's more affected by toxic air: A young executive in New Delhi or a housewife in a Haryana village?

One might assume the executive is worse off -after all, Delhi has the world's worst air. Yet a village woman who cooks over a dung-fuelled chulha for several hours a day could be more exposed to hazardous pollutants than a Delhi office worker.

This distinction between ambient pollution levels and individual exposure lies at the heart of a new report from a Union health ministry committee that -correcting a historical focus on urban air pollution -highlights the importance of tackling pollution from the burning of dung and wood in village chulhas across India.

The report, made available on the health ministry's website this week, calls for an integrated approach to air pollu tion that focuses on “reducing exposures not emissions“.

“All pollution is bad but, with the intention of eventually taking care of all of it, where do you focus your efforts first?“ said Ambuj Sagar, committee co-chair and Vipula and Mahesh Chaturvedi Professor of Policy Studies at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. “From a health standpoint, you prioritise reduction in areas and sources that most affect people directly.“

Top of the committee's list: reducing household air pollution from cooking with biomass because the proximity to humans makes stove smoke most harmful -next only to cigarette smoking.

Household cooking is “probably the largest single source of exposure in the country , although only one of many contributors to ambient air pollution,“ the report said.Most rural households in India, an estimated 780 million people, continue to rely on wood, dung and other biomass for cooking, while a good percentage of urban households also use non-LPG stoves.

Next on the committee's priority list: pollution from vehicles, garbage burning, and diesel generator sets -all micro or local sources of pollution. Then comes road and construction dust, followed by brick kilns, local industries, and then power plants and other large industries. Conventionally , environmental policy has focused on large-scale sources of ambient pollution. Road dust, for example, is thought to be a bigger source of pollution in Delhi than vehicles.

“The standard practice of ranking pollution sources on the basis of their contribution to ambient emissions...may be creating distortions in their apparent relative importance from the health standpoint, although perhaps adequate for other purposes -visibility , for example,“ the report says.

“Evaluation by exposure will not only re-order the ranking of major outdoor emission sources but will reveal an entirely different landscape of sources; those that may significantly affect exposure without appreciably affecting ambient concentration.“

Much more data and studies are needed to understand pollution patterns, Sagar said.Monitoring of air pollution is still largely confined to cities, the report notes, and monitors tend to be on rooftops “where people hardly ever are“.

To reduce household pollution, the report advocates expanding power and gas coverage as well as innovating cleaner stoves and running public health campaigns.Tackling air pollution should be part of the Swachh Bharat campaign, the committee said.

Emissions from cooking with biomass also contribute a quarter of ambient PM2.5 levels in the country , the report notes.

Carbon emission intensity

2005-10: emissions reduced by 12%

Total greenhouse gas emissions by India in 2010, as well as the sectors of the economy that contributed to these emissions; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, January 23, 2016

Sources:

1. The Times of India, January 23, 2016

2. The Times of India, January 23, 2016, Vishwa Mohan

India emission down 12% in five years  India is on course to fulfil its global commitment, having voluntarily cut its carbon emission intensity (emission per unit of GDP) by about 12% between 2005 and 2010, according to its report submitted to a UN climate body , reports Vishwa Mohan. The result shows the country is in line to reach its 20-25% reduction target by 2020 and subsequently the 33-35% emission intensity reduction goal by 2030 as promised by it. Just weeks after the Paris deal of December 2015, India submitted its first Biennial Update Report (BUR) to a UN climate body highlighting that the country is well on course to fullfil its global commitment by voluntarily cutting its carbon emission intensity (emission per unit of GDP) by about 12% between 2005 and 2010. The result appears encou raging as it shows that the country is in line to reach its 2025% reduction target by 2020 and subsequently the 33-35% emission intensity reduction goal by 2030 as promised by it in the country's climate action plan to the UN body . The BUR was submitted by India under its obligation to inform the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) about its action on the ground to deal with the challenges of climate change. As per the provisions of the Convention, countries need to periodically provide information in the form of their National Communication'.

The Paris climate agreement, reached by 195 countries on December 13 last year, had called for developing countries to submit their first biennial update reports as soon as possible. So far, 24 developing countries including Brazil, South Africa and South Korea have submitted the ir BURs. China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is yet to submit its report. Brazil has submitted its report, but has given only provisional inventory .

Developed countries, on the other hand, are required to submit a report known as the Biennial Report (BR), which is to be submitted every alternate year and is subjected to International Ana lysis and Review (IAR). But, the BURs of developing countries are subjected to an international process known as International Consultation and Analysis (ICA). It is a process that includes international scrutiny of BUR in a manner that is “non-intrusive, non-punitive and respectful of national sovereignty“.

India's BUR was prepared by the ministry of environ ment and climate change in consultations with various public and private institutions. It was approved by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday .According to India's BUR, the country had emitted 2,136.84 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases in 2010.About 12% of the emissions were, however, offset by carbon sink action of forests and croplands.

Fog in North-Central India (UP, Bihar, Bengal, NCR)

The Times of India, Feb 06 2016

Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar

UP, Bihar, West Bengal see more fog than NCR

When it comes to fog in north India, the large number of flight cancellations helps keep the spotlight irmly on New Delhi. But a new study suggests that the national capital region may not be the area most affected by the phenomenon. The frequency of fog occurrences has increased in the past 15 years in the eastern parts of the Indo-Gangetic plains -including eastern UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Bang adesh, as well as the Nepal Terai -but not in the western parts including Delhi, according to a satellite data analysis by IIT-Bombay researchers led by Ritesh Gautam.

The new findings are surprising because previous research has shown an increase n fog frequency over Delhi and surrounding areaslinked to a rise in humidity and pol ution. By contrast the new study , which was presented at the American Geophysical Union conference in December, found high year-to-year variability in fog occurrence over the Delhi region --linked to variability in weather conditions --but no longterm rise in the past decadeand-a-half.

Gautam, an assistant pro essor at IIT's centre of studies in resources engineering and climate studies, said the divergence could be because most other studies have relied on visibility measurements.

“When the visibility falls to less than one-km, it is classified as fog,“ he said. “But it might just be polluted haze.“

Satellite data has its own limitations. But Gautam said that the team had also found corroborative trends in surface data from 2000-2015.

The increase in fog over the eastern region coincided with a rise in pollution, the IIT analysis also found. Other studies have also shown a ink between increasing winter-time pollution and fogginess. Pollution particles, especially those known as aerosols, attract water vapour, promoting the formation of fog droplets.

In this case, Gautam suggested that the westerlies -winds flowing from north west of India -transport pol lution eastwards, leading to an accumulation over the eas tern Indo-Gangetic plains.

The findings point to the need for broadening fog study beyond the capital region Gautam said. “Although most of north India experiences fog and pollution in winter the focus is mostly on Delhi,“ said the former Nasa resear cher. “There should be incre ased focus over both urban and rural locations in nort hern India.“

Interestingly , a previous study by Gautam's team fo und holes in the fog cover over Delhi and other cities. This could be due to higher tempe ratures from urban heat is lands, the study suggested.

These studies stem from IIT-Bombay's Fog South Asia initiative (fogsoutha sia.com), a satellite monito ring system for fog detection being developed to aid the go vernment in forecasting and transport management.

The initiative is part of a slew of new efforts to decip her an important yet under studied phenomenon in So uth Asia, including the role played by air pollution.

In December, the Indian Meteorological Department and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology started a five-year study of fog in Delhi. The same month, a regional fog study was launched by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), an intergovernmental think-tank based in Kathmandu. The project is being conducted with the collaboration of scientists across India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh.

“The issue of fog is such that it cannot be studied locally and thus needs regional cooperation,“ said Bhupesh Adhikary , air quality specialist at ICIMOD.

The project involves collecting pollution and meteorology data in various locations along with satellite-based data, to understand the chemical science. “At the same time, we are also collecting data in small villages to try to understand the social dimension,“ Adhikary said.

While there is no scientific evidence yet about fog in the Nepal Terai, the public perception is that fog is getting more intense and lasts longer, he added.

“Existing forecasting models are from the US and don't show us the entire picture,“ said Sachin Ghude, the IIT-M coordinator for the Delhi campaign, which plans to collaborate with IIT-Bombay .“The goal,“ he said, “is to improve our understanding and fine-tune our models.“