Delhi pollution: How we can breathe easy
In January 2016, after much hesitation, the Delhi government took its first real emergency action against the deadly smog. It introduced an odd-and-even scheme to ration the number of vehicles on the road. It is another matter that the scheme was riddled with exemptions and so unlike what is done in other parts of the world when drastic action is required to cut smog — it had limited impact. But what stunned me was the opposition to the scheme — it is unnecessary, inconvenient and un-impactful was the shrill call. Delhi’s second experiment with restraining cars (after the BRT) went down the tube.
In April, when the Delhi government repeated its experiment (by then more for fame than pollution control), the scheme had lost its sheen to the extent that websites that monitor pollution, and even the CPCB, defied all logic to say that the introduction of the odd–even scheme had in fact increased pollution. This is when all data shows that taking cars off the road — even half of them and even without taking millions of two-wheelers off—had some pollution benefits, but that these were lost because of crop-burning fires from neighbouring states.
But it was inconvenient action. It involved personal cars. It allowed the narrative to grow — cars and diesel vehicles only contribute little (very little) to air pollution.
At this time, the automobile industry was on overdrive. Pollution was growing, people were increasingly concerned about their health. So something had to be done to divert attention from vehicles. Something else had to be blamed for our deadly pollution.
They found their answer — dust.
I was in the Delhi High Court in early 2016, where a battery of lawyers had filed separate petitions against the odd– even scheme of the Delhi government. Their arguments were that the scheme had led to enormous inconvenience and worse, daily pollution data showed no impact on air quality. Cars, they said, were not responsible for pollution.
I have also heard this argument in the Supreme Court. The court was listening to our urgent appeal to take steps to reduce toxic air pollution in the city. It was packed with the country’s most powerful lawyers—many of them former ministers — all representing automobile companies. They were agitated about the court’s direction to stop the sale of new diesel vehicles above 2000 cc in the NCR, the area contiguous with Delhi and where work and offices are seamlessly spread. Their vehement argument that their diesel-fuelled luxury vehicles are so clean made the otherwise sober and restrained former chief justice T.S. Thakur remark, ‘So do they emit oxygen?’
The sum of their argument was as follows: Vehicles are not responsible for air pollution; even if they are, cars are not responsible; trucks and two-wheelers contribute the bulk of the emissions. But even if cars are responsible, then "our" new diesel vehicles are not responsible. So go do something else to clean up Delhi’s air. Leave us to sell and leave us to drive.
Let us understand the facts. It is more certain today that two major causes of air pollution in Delhi are road dust and vehicles. The other source of pollution is the burning of coal in power stations, industries and as biomass for cooking. This is not to say that action is not to be taken against all. This is to say that no plan for air pollution control can succeed without hard steps to restrain the growth of vehicles, particularly the grossly polluting kind. It is also clear that controlling road dust will demand a multipronged action to pave, green and water the sidewalks. But road dust is also caused by vehicles — the more we drive the more dust is raised and recirculated. Worse, the coating of vehicle fumes makes the dust toxic. In short, urban road dust is not just dust, but poison.
Of all vehicles, are only cars and diesel to blame? Yes, and let me explain why. There are three major segments in vehicles—trucks, two-wheelers and cars. In Delhi, buses and three-wheelers have already switched to CNG, which emits less particulates than diesel vehicles. Trucks are bad news for pollution. They are old, mostly overloaded and operate on even dirtier diesel and technology. This is because cleaner diesel was not available across the country till April 2017, and truck makers, in the name of public goods transport, made profits by selling vehicles with really bad technology.
It is for this reason that the CSE had done a detailed investigation into truck pollution and demanded that an environment compensation tax be imposed on these vehicles if they were transiting through the polluted airshed of Delhi. We also asked for cleaner fuel and technology to be introduced today, not tomorrow.
The Supreme Court has heard us, imposed the tax and there are already some 20 per cent fewer trucks in Delhi. The central government has also heard us and decided to leapfrog to Euro-VI, the European fuel-vehicle emissions standards that can bring drastic improvement to diesel vehicles by the year 2020. This is an advancement of over four years and will be a big game changer. Incidentally, it was also opposed tooth and nail by the gaggle of automobile lawyers in the Supreme Court on that day.
After trucks come private vehicles, of which two-wheelers — because of their sheer numbers — contribute to the bulk of emissions. Cars add to about 10-15 per cent of vehicle emissions but this contribution is much more when you take the impact of congestion on the road. It is for this reason that the report of source inventory — an estimate of the pollution sources — by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, finds that in certain congested areas of Delhi, cars, particularly diesel cars, add up to 60-90 per cent of the PM 2.5— tiny particulates that are most toxic. It also finds that secondary particulates, formed from gases like nitrogen oxides and emitted from diesel vehicles and coal burning, are a big cause of air pollution in Delhi’s airshed.
Today, diesel cars, particularly "clean" and "new" ones (those meeting the current emission standards of BS-IV), are legally allowed to emit seven times more particulates and NOx than petrol. That’s why the rationing of vehicles based on their odd– even number plate is an emergency action that has to be tried. It needs to be done when pollution levels are very high. This is a public health emergency, as I said, and not a publicity stunt.
The long-term solution is reinventing mobility — moving people, not vehicles. But that is our real Achilles’ heel.
2017: High-pitched battle
In 2017, we faced another challenge. The automobile industry claimed that a huge injustice had been done to them because they have been asked to move to BS-IV technologies for emission control before the due date. They argued — again through their powerful, ex-minister lawyers — that the government notification only said companies would stop manufacturing BS-III vehicles by March 31, 2017. This does not mean that registration of BS-III vehicles would be stopped as of April 1, 2017.
Interestingly, though not surprisingly, the government decided to side with the manufacturers. "Make in India" would be jeopardised, they said. Huge inventories would go to waste.
Our position was different. Firstly, vehicles contribute to the pollution that is making us ill. Secondly, improving the quality of fuel and vehicle technology is a critical way to clean up emissions. Thirdly, automobile companies, therefore, knew well in advance that the fuel would be available across the country by April 1, 2017. The transition to BS-IV is also not new as technologies have been available since 2010. The date of ‘manufacture’ is, then, only a technical argument. The only constraint, that of clean fuel being available nationwide for long-distance carriers like taxis and trucks, has been removed.
Most importantly, transition matters. BS-IV vehicles, particularly diesel trucks, are much less polluting than BS-III. There is 80 per cent reduction in particulate emissions between the two generations. That is why bringing cleaner vehicles into the market, as fast as possible, matters. No doubt the country has a massive problem of older and more polluting vehicles. But why should this be an argument for delaying the transition? After all, vehicles have a life of ten to fifteen years. The faster the new stock takes over, the better it will be.
But there was a lot at stake. Tension and anger were running high in the courtroom. The senior advocate for the Society for Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), attacked us; he said we had been paid by rival companies — in this case, Bajaj Motors. Why? Because Bajaj Motors had gone to court saying that this extension of deadline was wrong. Air pollution was a public health issue. It needed firm action.
For me, personally, it was battle coming full circle. It was in the 1990s that we had put Rahul Bajaj, of the same Bajaj Motors, on the cover of our magazine, indicting the company for being part of the problem. Now, his son Rajiv Bajaj was part of the solution.
The court did not buy the argument of the industry (or the abuse against us). It stood firm. The Supreme Court bench of Justice Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta, in March 2017, ruled that no vehicle which was not BS-IV would be registered as of April 1, 2017. In its detailed judgement, the court said, ‘We cannot be asked to shut our eyes to the phenomenal rise in pollution levels in the country. ’And wisely added, ‘While the development versus environment paradigm could be debated upon, there cannot be any debate in the development versus public health paradigm.’
Winning against smog
If action will happen, clean air will happen.
As I write this, much has been done. And much more needs to be done for us to win this battle of battles.
The central government has jumped to announce that it will advance the deadline for cleaner fuel-emission technology by almost eight years.
In the winter of 2016, the Supreme Court also drove the government to finalize what is called the Graded Response Action Plan — in simple words, a smog alert system. Under this plan, it has been accepted that as levels of pollution rise, governments must respond with greater and greater actions. Think of it like a disaster code. As the level reaches emergency—code-red—everything from shutting power plants, taking cars off the road and shutting construction activities must happen. This also means that the effort must be made such that there is no code-red. We can reduce pollution, because we have taken hard steps through the year.
It has been agreed that the Badarpur Power Plant in Delhi— old and polluting—will be closed by the summer of 2018. This is a bold move. Now the effort should ensure that all other power plants clean up as well. The Ministry of Environment and Forests has issued new emission standards for power plants, but the industry is seeking time, as always. This should not happen.
There is more to be done with the fuel we use. In the past months, we have discovered that there is massive use of pet coke and furnace oil and all other such fuels, which are highly polluting. Pet coke is being imported in vast quantities, because exporting countries, like the US, want to dump it in the global market. They don’t want to use it because it is polluting. We are buying it as if we have no worries about pollution. This battle will be intense. The industry is gearing up to argue that this is not the problem, something else is.
Diesel is an incomplete story. In the past twenty years, this is a battle we have never fully won. Even today, buses, three-wheelers and taxis are switching from diesel to CNG to petrol; trucks, which carry essential goods, are being moved to cleaner technologies. But cars—SUVs—which carry the rich and powerful cannot be touched. The argument is that by 2020 we will have ‘clean’ diesel technology—this is when petrol and diesel emissions get equalized. But the Volkswagen scandal shows that even ‘clean’ diesel needs a cheat device to make it ‘clean’. In this way, toxicity will grow. The carcinogenicity index of diesel is not a laughing matter. It will poison. It will kill—this is no longer ‘slow murder’, but ‘fast and deliberate murder’.
Will we succeed? Or will we fail? Our story is your story today and tomorrow. We are not giving up so easily. So, let’s make this work. We must.
So that we can breathe easy.
(Reprinted with publisher's permission.)
Also read: Smog may seem invisible in Delhi, but the air is still poisonous