The dreadful air quality during winters in north India has been worrying.
Tackling air pollution needs re-imagining the use of our urban space.
What can be done to reduce vehicular pollution?
Air quality levels do depend on meteorological factors like air circulation, but it is primarily based on emission levels.
Governments alone can do little to solve this issue and requires co-ordinated action by business, the media, and the larger public.
While the number of polluters will rise with population and economic growth, the challenge is to reduce the ‘emissions intensity’ or ‘emission per activity’.
Emissions intensity reduction can be divided into technological and non-technological elements both of which needs to be taken up.
Completely switching over to electric cars or improving engine technologies or and using better quality fuel could enhance overall pollution cut efficiency.
But it will take at least three decades for the current fleet to turn over sufficiently towards significant emission cuts.
Considering that the cars are ever increasing and that people are driving a lot more, this might not be sufficient.
Hence, focusing on non-technological aspects such as urban planning, increasing cycling, walking, and use of public transport are needed.
What is needed?
It is not ethically appropriate to delay the resolution of deadly air pollution in cities as an entire generation would suffer greatly in the interim.
Redesigning our urban space with expanded walking, non-motorised cycling, waterways, and footpaths is needed for reducing vehicular pollution.
Many cities in Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas have shown how this can be done, and it is currently being studied by many cities in India.
There are also opportunities to reduce polluting activities in other sectors such as power generation and industrial production through technical upgrades.
Policymakers are currently skewed towards technology based solution to the pollution challenge and therefore need to embrace more comprehensive views.
