Ashraf Engineer
November 30, 2024
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to All Indians Matter. I am Ashraf Engineer.
All of you would have seen the apocalyptic pictures of pollution in North India, especially Delhi. They are not new, of course; we see them every year as winter begins to set in and crops are burned on the fringes of India’s capital in preparation for the next sowing season. While the courts have stepped in often enough, and administrators are trying to reduce the smog from crop burning, industries and vehicles, the crisis shows no sign of letting up.
It is often thought air pollution is an unavoidable byproduct of economic growth. To many, they are simply two sides of the same coin – you can’t have growth without pollution, they say. Which is why many industries think of environmental regulations as restrictive and anti-progress.
However, the truth is that India is paying a huge price for air pollution – not just in terms of public health but in economic terms too.
It is estimated that India’s GDP would have increased by $95 billion, or 3%, if it had achieved safe air quality levels in 2019. This means that a value equal to 50% of tax collected annually could be returned. It would also equal 150% of India’s healthcare budget. So, there is an urgent need for businesses and policymakers to get aggressive in cleaning up India’s air.
The economic benefits would include lower absenteeism, greater productivity, more consumption and less premature mortality.
On the health front, the State of Global Air 2024 report published by the Health Effects Institute said 464 children under the age of five die every day in India as a result of factors associated with air pollution. The report said the toll in India, across age categories, in 2021 was 2.1 million. That means air pollution has surpassed tobacco and diabetes as the leading cause of death, trailing only hypertension. Ailments linked to air pollution led to 8.1 million deaths across the world in 2021, with India accounting for a quarter of them.
As if this wasn’t enough, there is a further serious economic impact in the form of reduced crop yields.
SIGNATURE TUNE
PM2.5, or fine particulate matter, is a term used to describe particles in the air that are 2.5 micrometres or less in diameter. It is a mix of solid particles and liquid droplets. This is the most worrying kind of pollution and it comes from a variety of sources. These include fossil fuel emissions from coal, oil, wood, charcoal and crop residues. PM2.5 can also come from windblown dust, including dust from construction sites, roads and industries.
More than half of India’s PM2.5 emissions are formed in a ‘secondary’ way in the upper atmosphere when gaseous pollutants, such as ammonia, from one area mix with other gaseous pollutants like sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from other places. Farms, factories, power plants and vehicles all contribute to the formation of secondary PM2.5. This form spreads farther than primary PM2.5, travelling across cities, states and international borders.
The air pollution challenge, therefore, is multi-sectoral and multi-jurisdictional. To understand this, we must understand the ‘airshed effect’. An airshed is a region that shares a common air flow. The air quality within it depends on the pollution sources present. PM2.5 can be formed over large areas and so airsheds can be spread over hundreds of kilometres, well beyond single cities. So, India must take action at the sub-national level for effective air pollution control.
Coming back to the economic gains and losses, it is estimated that India could have gained 1.4 billion working days by decreasing air pollution in 2019, which would have translated to $6 billion in extra business revenue. The cognitive and physical performance of employees would be improved by cleaner air, adding another $24 billion a year to business revenues.
By and large, the cost of poor air quality manifests itself in six ways:
- Lower productivity
- Lower consumer spending
- Early death
- Lower asset productivity
- Higher healthcare costs
- Welfare losses
So, as things stand, employees need to work overtime to compensate for lost output and absent colleagues. As employees work harder, it results in burnout, attrition and difficulty in attracting talent. Productivity losses are seven times higher in sectors that rely on mental output, such as information technology. Absenteeism has a major impact, with the sector losing $1.3 billion every year to pollution-related productivity loss. This is 1% of the sector value.
Solving air pollution would also boost consumer spending – when pollution levels rise, consumers stay indoors in order to stay safe. Discretionary categories, such as apparel and restaurants, would benefit most from cleaner air. Studies show that, in 2019, consumer businesses would have gained $22 billion in revenue if pollution levels were lower.
Air pollution reduces the lifespan and output of business assets like machinery. Sulphur dioxide and other pollutants accelerate the degradation of circuitry, which reduces the efficiency and life of IT assets. This means they need to be replaced faster than usual, often at high cost.
On the human front, air-pollution-related premature deaths have an economic toll too. It was estimated that in 2019 air pollution was responsible for 18% of all deaths in India, which also meant a loss of 3.8 million workdays. This has a destructive effect on families and limits their economic growth.
Perhaps the greatest economic impact is the devastation air pollution wreaks on agricultural output. A research article published in July 2023 showed that India’s annual wheat yields declined by 14.18% between 2008 and 2012 due to air pollution from ground-level ozone.
Meanwhile, airborne pollutants stunt the flowering and growth of crops, causing an estimated 5% to12% decline in yields.
After carbon dioxide and methane, ground-level ozone is the third most important greenhouse gas. Monitoring data shows India’s ground-level ozone has drastically increased between 2005 and 2020, and this trend will continue due to climate change. The article warned that this would threaten cereal yields.
Earlier, in 2017, researchers across India studied wheat and rice yields based on ozone observations from 17 sites. They found that the greatest losses for wheat yields occur in the northern parts of India and for rice in the eastern parts. The losses ranged from 4.2% to 15% for wheat and 0.3% to 6.3% for rice.
As far as human costs go, avoiding air-pollution-related deaths would benefit the Indian economy to the tune of $44 billion. As India’s average age rises from 27 in 2019 to 32 in 2030, the population’s vulnerability to pollution will keep rising.
Delhi, for example, faces 275 days of unhealthy air every year. A study on a pharmacy chain there showed that the sale of respiratory medicines rose six-fold when PM2.5 levels crossed 250 micrograms per square metre. Tackling air pollution would boost Delhi’s GDP by up to 6%.
A study by the Lancet Planetary Health journal, which analysed data from 2008 to 2019, revealed that 7.2% of all deaths in India can be attributed to daily exposure to PM2.5. The study showed that PM2.5 concentration increased health costs in India by $40 per capita. These, then, are the hidden economic burdens air pollution places on you and me. It has made us more vulnerable to respiratory diseases, cardiovascular problems and cognitive impairments. Children are particularly vulnerable, with many experiencing respiratory issues and reduced lung function.
There is no quick fix. Air quality management is an ongoing process and needs to be integrated into government as well as business operations. And in our individual behaviour too. At the institutional level, it requires funding and capacity building. As I’ve said earlier, the airshed effect means that individual cities or towns cannot achieve pollution reductions by eliminating local emissions alone. So, you need efficient collaboration between districts and states.
Clean air is critical if we are to have a healthy society and consistent growth. There are massive benefits to be gained from it. Solving the air pollution crisis is good for the environment, good for businesses and good for us. It’s a matter of life and death, yes, and often the difference between prosperity and penury.
Thank you all for listening. Please visit allindiansmatter.in for more columns and audio podcasts. You can follow me on Twitter at @AshrafEngineer and @AllIndiansCount. Search for the All Indians Matter page on Facebook. On Instagram, the handle is @AllIndiansMatter. Email me at editor@allindiansmatter.in. Catch you again soon.
