• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

Plastic is no longer a waste management issue

New CSE report shows its production went up by 80% during 2000-15, adding to climate change Plastic is arguably the most ubiquitous material of our times. In this Age of Plastic, it might seem its use can’t go up any further – and yet it keeps going. Between 2000 and 2015, global production of plastic increased by a whopping 79%. The total mass of plastics on our planet is now twice the mass of all living mammals, and about 80% of all the plastics ever produced continues to remain in the environment. There is an intimate connection to climate change as well. Plastic production has quadrupled over the last four decades and if this trend were to continue, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from plastics alone would reach 15% of the global carbon budget by 2050. In fact, if the plastic industry were a country, it would be the fifth largest greenhouse gas emitter on Earth. India consumed 18.45 million metric tonne (MMT) of plastic in 2018-19; and 59% of it went into packaging. This means that of all the petrochemicals produced in the country (29.1 MMT), more than 37% was used to manufacture plastics for packaging applications. These mind-numbing data and information is compiled from national and international research in a new report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) which was released here on Tuesday. Bringing home the omnipresent character of the ‘plastic problem’, the report was released at a national conclave titled ‘The plastic life cycle’ that brought together key regulators, waste management professionals, urban and town planners, representatives from NGOs and journalists. The report was released jointly by Leena Nandan, secretary, ministry of environment, forest and climate change, Parameswaran Iyer, CEO, NITI Aayog, and Sunita Narain, director general, CSE. “We are given to understand that the problem of plastic is a waste management issue and not a material production issue because we can recycle it, burn and bury it, or ship it to other countries where it can be handled. But it is not that simple. We have… Read More (+)

• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

Indian manufacturers and brands don’t manage plastic waste adequately, flags CSE

NEW DELHI: Plastic production has quadrupled over the last four decades and if this trend were to continue, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from plastics alone would reach 15% of the global carbon budget by 2050, said the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in its new report, released on Tuesday, that made a case for proper recycling of of its waste to save the planet. Noida: Put your money to work and Start Earning a Potential Second Income with only $250 Ad Octopus Squad Noida: Put your money to work and Start Earning a Potential Second Income with only $250 Keeping in view the enormous challenge of plastic waste that pollutes air, water and soil, and also enters the food chain through animals carrying microplastics in their bodies, the report - The Plastic Life-Cycle - flags findings of a research paper published in Nature Climate Change, saying "if the plastic industry were a country, it would be the fifth largest GHG emitter on Earth”. The report, released jointly by environment secretary Leena Nandan and Niti Ayog CEO Parameswaran Iyer, shows that India consumed 18.45 million metric tonne (MMT) of plastic in the year 2018-19 and 59% of this went into packaging — it means of all the petrochemicals produced in the country (29.1 MMT), more than 37% was used to manufacture plastics for packaging applications. Noting the existing challenge of managing the plastic waste, the report reveals that India recycled a meagre 12% and burnt 20% of the 3.5 million tonnes of plastic waste it generated in 2019-20 whereas there is no information on the remaining 68% of plastic waste, which most likely ends up in dumpsites and landfills. Broadly, the report flags that the plastic producers as well as major Indian brands cause plastic waste and pollution in the country in a big way. They manufacture large amounts of plastic which can’t be recycled, while brands do not recycle enough. “We are given to understand that the problem of plastic is a waste management issue and not a material production issue because we can recycle it, burn and bury it, or ship it to other countries where it can be handled. But it is not that simple. We have crossed the last frontier on plastic with our current production and consumption patterns. Plastic has not gone away. Plastic that we produce on land is now ending up in our oceans, and from there and elsewhere, into our own bodies," said Sunita Narain, director general, CSE. Globally, the production of plastic between 2000 and 2015 increased by a whopping 79%. “The total mass of plastics on our planet is now twice the mass of all living mammals, and about 80% of all the plastics ever produced continues to remain in the environment,” said the CSE, referring to another study by the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

सस्ते हो सकते हैं इलेक्ट्रिक वाहन, सरकार ने लिया ये बड़ा फैसला, देखें और क्या होगा असर?

केंद्र सरकार के साइंस एंड टेक्नोलॉजी डिपार्टमेंट (डीएसटी) और ग्रीन एनर्जी के थिंक टैंक साइंस एंड एनवायरमेंट सेंटर (सीएसई) ने एक ऐसा मंच बनाने के लिए हाथ मिलाया है जो भारतीय लोगों की आवश्यकताओं के हिसाब से नई इलेक्ट्रिक वाहन (ईवी) बैटरियां बनाने में मदद करेगा. सीएसई ने एक बयान में कहा कि भारत में नई बैटरियों की टेक्नोलॉजी विकसित करने के लिए एक रूपरेखा तैयार की जाएगी. इसके बाद इस प्रक्रिया में सहयोग के लिए विशेषज्ञ-उद्योग मंच बनाया जाएगा. सीएसई की रिचर्स डिवीजन की एग्जीक्यूटिव डायरेक्टर अनुमिता रॉय चौधरी ने कहा, ‘‘भारत इलेक्ट्रिक वाहनों को आगे बढ़ाने के लिए ‘फास्टर एडॉप्शन एंड मैन्युफैक्चरिंग ऑफ इलेक्ट्रिक व्हीकल्स’ (एफएएमई) के साथ और उत्पादन से जुड़े प्रोत्साहनों पर काम कर रहा है, लेकिन इसकी लागत, सुरक्षा और चार्जिंग सुविधाओं से जुड़ी अभी कई चुनौतियां हैं.’’ सीएसई की एक अन्य अधिकारी मौसमी मोहंती ने कहा कि इस पहल का उद्देश्य इन चुनौतियों से निपटना है. तेजी से बढ़ रही e- वाहनों की मांग ‘नेशनल इलेक्ट्रिक मोबिलिटी मिशन प्लान’ (एनईएमएमपी) 2020 के तौर पर भारी उद्योग विभाग ने इलेक्ट्रिक और हाइब्रिड वाहन टेक्नोलॉजी को बढ़ावा देने और इसके लगातार विकास के लिए 2015 में ‘फेम’ योजना बनाई थी. भारत समेत दुनिया के कई देशों में इलेक्ट्रिक वाहनों की मांग अब तेजी से बढ़ने लगी हैं. इसकी वजह दुनिया भर में बढ़ता प्रदूषण और पेट्रोल-डीजल की निर्भरता को कम करना है. इसे देखते हुए सरकार देश में ईवी को बढ़ावा देने के लिए कई तरह की योजना बना रही हैं. 185 प्रतिशत बढ़ी ईवी की बिक्री पिछले महीने यानी अक्टूबर के दौरान देश में इलेक्ट्रिक वाहनों की बिक्री की बात करें तो इसमें सालाना आधार पर करीब 185 प्रतिशत बढ़ोतरी हुई है. इस दौरान कुल 1,11,971 ईवी बिके हैं. इसमें यात्री वाहनों की बिक्री शामिल है. फेडरेशन ऑफ ऑटोमोबाइल डीलर्स एसोसिएशन ऑफ इंडिया (फाडा) के मुताबिक, पिछले साल अक्टूबर में इलेक्ट्रिक वाहनों की बिक्री 39,329 इकाई रही थी. कुल इलेक्ट्रिक यात्री वाहनों की बिक्री पिछले महीने में 178 प्रतिशत बढ़कर 3,745 इकाई रही जो एक साल पहले इसी महीने में 1,346 इकाई थी. कमर्शियल वाहनों की बिक्री भी बढ़ी फाडा के आंकड़ों के अनुसार, इलेक्ट्रिक कमर्शियल वाहनों की बिक्री 125.64 प्रतिशत बढ़कर 274 इकाई रही. इलेक्ट्रिक दोपहिया वाहनों की बिक्री अक्टूबर में 269.06 प्रतिशत बढ़कर 73,169 इकाई रही जो एक साल पहले इसी महीने में 19,826 इकाई थी. आंकड़ों के अनुसार, इलेक्ट्रिक थ्री-व्हीलर वाहनों की बिक्री अक्टूबर में 92.87 प्रतिशत बढ़कर 34,793 इकाई रही, जो एक साल पहले अक्टूबर, 2021 में 18,040 इकाई थी.

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

केंद्र ने इलेक्ट्रिक वाहनों की बैटरियों के उत्पादन के लिए थिंक टैंक से हाथ मिलाया

केंद्र के विज्ञान एवं प्रौद्योगिकी विभाग (डीएसटी) और हरित ऊर्जा के थिंक टैंक विज्ञान एवं पर्यावरण केंद्र ( सीएसई) ने एक ऐसा मंच बनाने के लिए हाथ मिलाया है जो भारतीय लोगों की आवश्यकताओं के अनुकूल नयी इलेक्ट्रिक वाहन (ईवी) बैटरियां बनाने में मदद करेगा। सीएसई ने मंगलवार को एक बयान में कहा कि भारत में नयी बैटरियों की प्रौद्योगिकियां विकसित करने के लिए एक रूपरेखा पर एक श्वेत पत्र तैयार किया जाएगा। इसके बाद इस प्रक्रिया में सहयोग के लिए विशेषज्ञ-उद्योग मंच बनाया जाएगा। सीएसई की अनुसंधान प्रभाग की कार्यकारी निदेशक अनुमिता रॉय चौधरी ने कहा, ‘‘भारत इलेक्ट्रिक वाहनों को आगे बढ़ाने के लिए ‘फास्टर अडोप्शन एंड मैन्यूफैक्चरिंग ऑफ इलेक्ट्रिक व्हीकल्स’ (एफएएमई) के साथ और उत्पादन से जुड़े प्रोत्साहनों पर काम कर रहा है लेकिन इसकी लागत, सुरक्षा और चार्जिंग सुविधाओं के संबंध में चुनौतियां हैं।’’ सीएसई की एक अन्य अधिकारी मौसमी मोहंती ने कहा कि इस पहल का उद्देश्य इन चुनौतियों से निपटना है। ‘नेशनल इलेक्ट्रिक मोबिलिटी मिशन प्लान’ (एनईएमएमपी) 2020 के तौर पर भारी उद्योग विभाग ने इलेक्ट्रिक और हाइब्रिड वाहन प्रौद्योगिकी को बढ़ावा देने तथा इसके सतत विकास के लिए 2015 में ‘फेम’ योजना बनायी थी।

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Centre for Science and Environment and Department of Science and Technology (DST) will collaborate for development of EV batteries

According to a press release by the New Delhi based Non-profit Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), “ Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) of the Government of India have collaborated to create a platform that will support the development of new electric vehicle (EV) batteries to suit Indian requirements. A white paper will be prepared on a roadmap for the development of new battery technologies in India;this would be followed by the creation of an expert-industry forum or platform to support this process. This collaborative initiative was kicked off recently with a round table on locally appropriate EV batteries that are safe, durable and effective within the constraints of a hot and humid tropical climate This was the first in a series of consultations that will be held with experts from leading institutions and representatives from vehicle manufacturers, battery industry, regulatory bodies, testing entities and independent laboratories focused on battery chemistries.

• Urban Lab

Beijing is fixing its foul air. Why can’t New Delhi?

A decade ago, the capitals of Asia’s two largest countries had some of the dirtiest skies in the world. On the worst days, millions were enveloped in thick gray canopies of smog that darkened the sun and besieged the lungs. Since then, one of those cities has made significant improvements. After the Chinese government declared a war against pollution in 2013, Beijing pressed ahead with a multiyear, $100 billion effort to clean its air. Authorities clamped down on factories, took old vehicles off the road and shifted from coal to natural gas. While more still needs to be done, Beijing officials say the city now has over 100 more days of clear skies each year than when the campaign began. But in the other city, New Delhi, the air this autumn has been as foul as ever. The onset of air pollution season brought weeks of haze to the city, prompting officials to halt truck traffic, close schools and ask people to work from home. Those who still ventured out coughed into their masks and rubbed their eyes. The air felt bitter on the tongue. Every year, the skies in the Delhi region turn acrid from pollution generated by millions of vehicles, the burning of stubble on surrounding farms and the use of open fires for heating and cooking in rural homes. And every year, residents are left to ask why nothing changes. The diverging fortunes come down, in no small part, to differences between China’s authoritarian system and India’s huge and messy democracy. Overall, China ranks relatively low on international indexes of environmental performance. But in the case of Beijing’s pollution, the Chinese government tackled it with single-minded focus when its scale became too daunting to ignore, forcing rapid, coordinated action in response to public anger. India, experts say, has lacked both political resolve and public pressure to address the issue. Voters have more pressing concerns in a country where tens of millions still live in poverty. Politicians use the crisis to attack adversaries, rather than seek solutions. “A lot of it has to do with the political will and the coordination between the various governments,” said Avikal Somvanshi, a data specialist for the Clean Air Campaign at the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi. “The infighting keeps happening,” he lamented. Take, for instance, a recent exchange between local and national leaders in India, who have perennially traded blame over who is responsible for the capital’s poor air quality. An official in the party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi compared Delhi’s chief minister — a member of an opposition party — to Hitler, saying the minister had “converted his city into a gas chamber.” The chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, swiped back on a television show, asking why “the central government is sitting in hiding, locked up in a room.” In China, the one-party system brooks no opposition; when the central government prioritizes an initiative, local authorities fall in line. That happened in the case of Beijing’s pollution, as the capital worked in tandem with regional officials and neighboring cities, said Zongbo Shi, an atmospheric science professor at the University of Birmingham in England. In India, where local governments are run by an array of parties, coordination is “really complicated,” Shi said. In the absence of political will, economic interests win out; Delhi is surrounded by regions that are home predominantly to farmers and blue-collar workers who typically prioritize urgent economic needs over the environment. India is much less wealthy than China, which has enjoyed four decades of rapid growth, so Delhi cannot invest as much in environmental cleanup. India’s economic output was $2,300 per person last year, while China’s was $12,500. “It’s very hard to trade off air pollution with money — money is likely to win that fight,” said Michael Greenstone, the head of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. “There are dual and conflicting goals here: reducing air pollution and growing the economy.” Indian leaders have little incentive to bridge the divides in part because cleaning the skies is low among voters’ priorities. Even as air pollution has been known to kill more Indians than any other risk factor, voters ranked air quality as their 17th most urgent concern in a countrywide survey before the 2019 election, well behind jobs, health care and infrastructure. Only about 12% of respondents called air pollution a priority. In China, by contrast, residents — especially those in a growing middle class — made their frustration known even within the authoritarian system. Some in Beijing began to call the most toxic bouts of smog an “airpocalypse.” Alarm grew as studies showed that air pollution was contributing to more than 1 million premature deaths across China each year. (Today, censorship makes it harder to express complaints on all issues, including environmental ones.) “The people’s will can have a great influence on what happens,” Greenstone said. “Until there’s consistent demand, it’s very, very hard to get real improvements.” In India, he added, air pollution “has not taken the same central political priority as it has in China to date.” With no unified effort, experts say, Delhi officials have taken limited action. In recent years, the city has closed two coal-burning power plants and required factories to switch to piped natural gas from coal, and there are plans to deploy at least 8,000 electric buses by 2025, said Jasmine Shah, a vice chair of the Delhi government think tank that helps create the city’s air pollution policy. But officials have also turned to more dubious solutions. On a recent afternoon, giant fans at the bottom of a green “smog tower” threw out cool, filtered air near an imposing Sikh temple in the heart of Delhi. Nearby, a truck-mounted “anti-smog gun” sprayed water into the air. Ishmeet Kaur, 19, a college student, considered the smog tower from across the street. “A cosmetic effort by the government to make us feel better,” she said. “If only the politicians took our health seriously and did something real about this problem,” she added as she coughed into a black face mask. “We will have to rely on the weather gods.” When China acted on its own pollution problem, it took on a crisis decades in the making. Since the 1980s, rapid industrialization and urbanization had driven China’s extraordinary rise as an economic power. But its reliance on energy-intensive heavy industry to fuel that growth came at an immense environmental cost. In 2013, Chinese officials released a new national air action plan, began publishing important air-quality data and publicly raised alarms about the pollution problem. As part of the national plan, Beijing was required to reduce its pollution by 25%. China then undertook an array of steps, experts said: It tightened industrial emission standards on some factories and phased out or upgraded other outdated ones; discarded 20 million old vehicles; upgraded 200,000 industrial boilers; and switched to natural gas from coal as the source of electricity for 6 million households. In some cases, the decisive action came with a cost: When officials removed the coal boilers, for instance, some homes were temporarily left without winter heating. “A clear example of a poor execution of a plan to make a massive difference,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, based in Helsinki. “It caused major suffering for a lot of people.” Nonetheless, researchers found that the tough policies worked. From 2013 to 2017, the concentration of dangerous fine particulate matter known as PM 2.5 in China’s atmosphere declined by roughly a third. Beijing’s air is still far from perfect, especially in the winter. For more than 100 days last year, the air was considered “unhealthy for sensitive groups of people” or carried a worse rating. According to Greenstone of the University of Chicago, Beijing’s average level of microparticle pollution in 2020 was three times that in Los Angeles. This past weekend, Beijing’s smog reached levels classified as “very unhealthy.” While the city has seen improvement overall, in Delhi, the concentration of air pollutants remained at roughly the same hazardous levels between 2013 and 2020, according to the Energy Policy Institute. India has long known how to fix Delhi’s air pollution. A 1997 government white paper identified vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions as the main culprits and suggested sweeping action. During the 1990s, the city tightened emission standards, relocated polluting industries and required thousands of its buses and auto rickshaws to switch to compressed natural gas from diesel fuel. But Delhi continues to struggle with poor air quality. On a recent Monday, the sky was a lovely light blue. But the tint was misleading. The air quality was classified as “poor,” according to government data, which gave it a “very unhealthy” index score of 294. Anything 50 or under is considered satisfactory.

• Urban Lab

Beijing Is Tackling Its Air Pollution Problem. Why Can’t New Delhi?

The return of air pollution season in India ’s capital has renewed questions about why exactly the problem has become so intractable. The return of smog season in India ’s capital has again left residents asking why nothing has changed. The answer may be largely political.

• Urban Lab

Bắc Kinh đang giải quyết ô nhiễm không khí. Tại sao New Delhi không thể?

Một thập kỷ trước, thủ đô của hai quốc gia lớn nhất châu Á đều có bầu trời bẩn nhất thế giới. Vào những ngày tồi tệ nhất, hàng triệu người bị bao phủ bởi những màn sương mù dày đặc màu xám làm đen mặt trời và bao vây phổi. Kể từ đó, một trong những thành phố đó đã có những cải thiện đáng kể. Sau khi chính phủ Trung Quốc tuyên bố cuộc chiến chống ô nhiễm vào năm 2013, Bắc Kinh đã thúc đẩy một thời hạn nhiều năm, 100 tỷ USD nỗ lực để làm sạch không khí của nó. Các nhà chức trách đã siết chặt các nhà máy, buộc các phương tiện cũ ra khỏi đường và chuyển từ than đá sang khí đốt tự nhiên. Trong khi vẫn còn nhiều việc phải làm, các quan chức Bắc Kinh cho biết thành phố hiện đã vượt qua 100 ngày nữa bầu trời quang đãng mỗi năm so với khi chiến dịch bắt đầu. Nhưng ở thành phố khác, New Delhi, không khí mùa thu năm nay vẫn hôi hơn bao giờ hết. Mùa ô nhiễm không khí bắt đầu mang đến nhiều tuần khói mù cho thành phố, khiến các quan chức phải tạm dừng lưu lượng xe tải, đóng cửa trường học và yêu cầu mọi người làm việc tại nhà. Những người vẫn mạo hiểm ho vào khẩu trang và dụi mắt. Không khí cảm thấy đắng trên lưỡi. Hàng năm, bầu trời ở khu vực Delhi trở nên khắc nghiệt do ô nhiễm do hàng triệu phương tiện giao thông tạo ra, việc đốt rơm rạ ở các trang trại xung quanh và việc sử dụng lửa để sưởi ấm và nấu ăn ở các ngôi nhà nông thôn. Và mỗi năm, cư dân lại hỏi tại sao không có gì thay đổi. Vận may khác nhau một phần không nhỏ là do sự khác biệt giữa hệ thống chuyên chế của Trung Quốc và nền dân chủ rộng lớn và lộn xộn của Ấn Độ. Nhìn chung, Trung Quốc xếp hạng tương đối thấp về các chỉ số quốc tế về hiệu suất môi trường. Nhưng trong trường hợp ô nhiễm ở Bắc Kinh, chính phủ Trung Quốc đã giải quyết nó bằng sự tập trung duy nhất khi quy mô của nó trở nên quá khó khăn để bỏ qua, buộc phải hành động nhanh chóng, phối hợp để đáp lại sự tức giận của công chúng. Các chuyên gia cho rằng Ấn Độ đã thiếu cả quyết tâm chính trị lẫn áp lực của công chúng để giải quyết vấn đề. Các cử tri có nhiều mối quan tâm cấp bách hơn ở một đất nước mà hàng chục triệu người vẫn sống trong cảnh nghèo đói. Các chính trị gia sử dụng cuộc khủng hoảng để tấn công đối thủ, thay vì tìm kiếm giải pháp. Avikal Somvanshi, chuyên gia dữ liệu cho Chiến dịch Không khí Sạch tại Trung tâm Khoa học và Môi trường ở New Delhi, cho biết: “Rất nhiều điều liên quan đến ý chí chính trị và sự phối hợp giữa các chính phủ khác nhau. “Đấu đá nội bộ,” anh than thở, “tiếp tục xảy ra.” Lấy ví dụ, một cuộc trao đổi gần đây giữa các nhà lãnh đạo địa phương và quốc gia ở Ấn Độ, những người lâu nay vẫn đổ lỗi cho nhau về việc ai chịu trách nhiệm về chất lượng không khí kém của thủ đô. Một quan chức trong đảng do Thủ tướng Narendra Modi đứng đầu đã so sánh thủ hiến Delhi – một thành viên của đảng đối lập – với Hitler, nói rằng bộ trưởng đã “biến thành phố của mình thành một phòng hơi ngạt.” Bộ trưởng, Arvind Kejriwal, đã rút lại trên một chương trình truyền hìnhđặt câu hỏi tại sao “chính quyền trung ương đang ngồi ẩn, nhốt trong phòng.” Ở Trung Quốc, hệ thống độc đảng không chấp nhận sự phản đối; khi chính quyền trung ương ưu tiên một sáng kiến, chính quyền địa phương sẽ xếp hàng. Zongbo Shi, giáo sư khoa học khí quyển tại Đại học Birmingham ở Anh, cho biết điều đó đã xảy ra trong trường hợp ô nhiễm của Bắc Kinh, khi thủ đô làm việc song song với các quan chức khu vực và các thành phố lân cận. Ở Ấn Độ, nơi chính quyền địa phương được điều hành bởi nhiều bên, sự phối hợp là “thực sự phức tạp,” Giáo sư Shi nói. Khi không có ý chí chính trị, lợi ích kinh tế sẽ chiến thắng; Delhi được bao quanh bởi các khu vực chủ yếu là nông dân và công nhân cổ xanh, những người thường ưu tiên các nhu cầu kinh tế cấp bách hơn môi trường. Ấn Độ kém giàu có hơn nhiều so với Trung Quốc, quốc gia đã có bốn thập kỷ tăng trưởng nhanh chóng, vì vậy Delhi không thể đầu tư nhiều vào việc làm sạch môi trường. Sản lượng kinh tế của Ấn Độ là 2.300 USD/người vào năm ngoái, trong khi của Trung Quốc là 12.500 USD/người. Michael Greenstone, người đứng đầu Viện Chính sách Năng lượng tại Đại học Chicago cho biết: “Rất khó để đánh đổi ô nhiễm không khí bằng tiền – tiền có khả năng chiến thắng trong cuộc chiến đó. “Có hai mục tiêu mâu thuẫn nhau ở đây: giảm ô nhiễm không khí và tăng trưởng kinh tế.” Các nhà lãnh đạo Ấn Độ có ít động lực để thu hẹp khoảng cách một phần vì làm sạch bầu trời nằm trong số các ưu tiên thấp của cử tri. Ngay cả khi ô nhiễm không khí được biết đến là nguyên nhân giết chết nhiều người Ấn Độ hơn bất kỳ yếu tố rủi ro nào khác, các cử tri đã xếp chất lượng không khí là mối quan tâm cấp bách thứ 17 của họ trên toàn quốc. sự khảo sát trước cuộc bầu cử năm 2019, chậm hơn nhiều so với việc làm, chăm sóc sức khỏe và cơ sở hạ tầng. Chỉ có khoảng 12 phần trăm số người được hỏi coi ô nhiễm không khí là ưu tiên hàng đầu. Ngược lại, ở Trung Quốc, cư dân — đặc biệt là tầng lớp trung lưu đang phát triển — đã bày tỏ sự thất vọng của họ ngay cả trong hệ thống độc tài. Một số người ở Bắc Kinh bắt đầu gọi những đợt sương mù độc hại nhất là “ngày tận thế”. Báo động ngày càng lớn khi các nghiên cứu cho thấy ô nhiễm không khí góp phần gây ra hơn một triệu ca tử vong sớm trên khắp Trung Quốc mỗi năm. (Ngày nay, cơ quan kiểm duyệt khiến việc bày tỏ sự phàn nàn về mọi vấn đề trở nên khó khăn hơn, kể cả những vấn đề về môi trường.) Giáo sư Greenstone nói: “Ý chí của mọi người có thể có ảnh hưởng lớn đến những gì xảy ra. “Cho đến khi có nhu cầu nhất quán, rất, rất khó để có được những cải tiến thực sự.” Ông nói thêm, ở Ấn Độ, ô nhiễm không khí “không được coi là ưu tiên chính trị trung tâm giống như ở Trung Quốc cho đến nay”. Các chuyên gia nói rằng không có nỗ lực thống nhất, các quan chức Delhi đã có hành động hạn chế. Trong những năm gần đây, thành phố đã đóng cửa hai nhà máy điện đốt than và yêu cầu các nhà máy chuyển đổi dẫn khí tự nhiên từ than đávà có kế hoạch triển khai ít nhất 8.000 xe buýt điện vào năm 2025, Jasmine Shah, phó chủ tịch của think tank của chính quyền Delhi giúp tạo ra chính sách ô nhiễm không khí của thành phố. Nhưng các quan chức cũng đã chuyển sang các giải pháp đáng ngờ hơn. Vào một buổi chiều gần đây, những chiếc quạt khổng lồ được lắp dưới đáy của một “tháp khói” màu xanh lá cây đã thổi ra luồng không khí được lọc sạch mát mẻ gần một ngôi đền Sikh hùng vĩ ở trung tâm Delhi. Gần đó, một “súng chống khói” gắn vào một chiếc xe tải phun nước lên không trung. Ishmeet Kaur, một sinh viên đại học 19 tuổi, nhìn tháp khói từ bên kia đường. “Một nỗ lực thẩm mỹ của chính phủ,” cô ấy nói, “để làm cho chúng tôi cảm thấy tốt hơn.” “Giá như các chính trị gia coi trọng sức khỏe của chúng ta và làm điều gì đó thực sự về vấn đề này,” cô ấy nói thêm khi ho vào chiếc khẩu trang đen. “Chúng ta sẽ phải dựa vào các vị thần thời tiết.” Khi Trung Quốc hành động đối với vấn đề ô nhiễm của chính mình, nó đã trải qua một cuộc khủng hoảng kéo dài hàng thập kỷ. Kể từ những năm 1980, quá trình công nghiệp hóa và đô thị hóa nhanh chóng đã thúc đẩy sự trỗi dậy phi thường của Trung Quốc với tư cách là một cường quốc kinh tế. Nhưng sự phụ thuộc của nó vào ngành công nghiệp nặng sử dụng nhiều năng lượng để thúc đẩy sự tăng trưởng đó đã phải trả giá đắt về môi trường. Vào năm 2013, các quan chức Trung Quốc đã công bố kế hoạch hành động về không khí quốc gia mới, bắt đầu công bố dữ liệu quan trọng về chất lượng không khí và công khai đưa ra những cảnh báo về vấn đề ô nhiễm. Là một phần của kế hoạch quốc gia, Bắc Kinh được yêu cầu giảm 25% ô nhiễm. Các chuyên gia cho biết, Trung Quốc sau đó đã thực hiện một loạt các bước: thắt chặt các tiêu chuẩn khí thải công nghiệp đối với một số nhà máy và loại bỏ hoặc nâng cấp dần các nhà máy lỗi thời khác; 20 triệu xe cũ thải bỏ; nâng cấp 200.000 nồi hơi công nghiệp; và chuyển sang sử dụng khí đốt tự nhiên từ than đá làm nguồn cung cấp điện cho sáu triệu hộ gia đình. Trong một số trường hợp, hành động quyết đoán đi kèm với cái giá phải trả: Chẳng hạn như khi các quan chức dỡ bỏ các nồi hơi đốt than, một số ngôi nhà tạm thời bị bỏ lại mà không có hệ thống sưởi mùa đông. Lauri Myllyvirta, nhà phân tích tại Trung tâm Nghiên cứu Năng lượng và Không khí Sạch, có trụ sở tại Helsinki, Phần Lan, cho biết: “Một ví dụ rõ ràng về việc thực hiện kém kế hoạch nhằm tạo ra sự khác biệt lớn. “Nó gây ra đau khổ lớn cho rất nhiều người.” Tuy nhiên, các nhà nghiên cứu tìm thấy rằng các chính sách cứng rắn đã làm việc. Từ năm 2013 đến 2017, nồng độ của vật chất hạt mịn nguy hiểm được gọi là PM 2.5 trong bầu khí quyển của Trung Quốc đã giảm khoảng một phần ba. Không khí ở Bắc Kinh vẫn chưa hoàn hảo, đặc biệt là vào mùa đông. Trong hơn 100 ngày vào năm ngoái, không khí được coi là “không lành mạnh cho những nhóm người nhạy cảm” hoặc bị xếp hạng tồi tệ hơn. Theo Giáo sư Greenstone của Đại học Chicago, mức độ ô nhiễm hạt vi mô trung bình của Bắc Kinh vào năm 2020 cao gấp ba lần so với ở Los Angeles. Cuối tuần này, sương mù ở Bắc Kinh đã đạt đến mức được phân loại là “rất có hại cho sức khỏe”. Tuy nhiên, trong khi thành phố đã được cải thiện về tổng thể, thì ở Delhi, nồng độ các chất gây ô nhiễm không khí vẫn ở mức nguy hiểm gần như tương tự từ năm 2013 đến năm 2020, theo báo cáo của Ủy ban. Viện chính sách năng lượng. Ấn Độ có từ lâu đã biết cách khắc phục tình trạng ô nhiễm không khí ở Delhi. Chính phủ năm 1997 giấy trắng xác định khí thải xe cộ và khí thải công nghiệp là thủ phạm chính và đề xuất hành động truy quét. Trong những năm 1990thành phố đã thắt chặt các tiêu chuẩn khí thải, di dời các ngành công nghiệp gây ô nhiễm và yêu cầu hàng nghìn xe buýt và xe kéo của thành phố chuyển sang sử dụng khí thiên nhiên nén từ nhiên liệu diesel. Nhưng Delhi vẫn tiếp tục vật lộn với chất lượng không khí kém. Vào một ngày thứ Hai gần đây, bầu trời có màu xanh nhạt đáng yêu. Nhưng màu sắc đã gây hiểu lầm. Chất lượng không khí được phân loại là “kém”, theo dữ liệu của chính phủ, cho điểm chỉ số “rất không tốt cho sức khỏe” là 294. Bất cứ thứ gì từ 50 trở xuống đều được coi là đạt yêu cầu.

• Urban Lab

Beijing Is Tackling Its Air Pollution Problem. Why Can’t New Delhi?

A decade ago, the capitals of Asia’s two largest countries both had some of the dirtiest skies in the world. On the worst days, millions were enveloped in thick gray canopies of smog that darkened the sun and besieged the lungs. Since then, one of these cities has made significant improvements. After the Chinese government declared a war against pollution in 2013, Beijing pushed through a multi-year, 100 billion dollars efforts to clean its air. Authorities cracked down on factories, forced old vehicles off the road and switched from coal to natural gas. While more still needs to be done, Beijing officials say the city is now over 100 more days of clear skies each year than when the campaign began. But in the other city, New Delhi, the air this autumn has been as bad as ever. The start of air pollution season brought weeks of haze to the city, prompting officials to briefly halt truck traffic, close schools and ask people to work from home. Those who still ventured out coughed into their masks and rubbed their eyes. The air felt bitter on the tongue. Every year, the sky in the Delhi region turns acrid with pollution generated by millions of vehicles, the burning of stubble in surrounding farms and the use of open fires for heating and cooking in rural homes. And every year residents are left to ask why nothing changes. The divergent fortunes are due in no small part to differences between China’s authoritarian system and India’s vast and messy democracy. Overall, China is relatively low on international indices of environmental performance. But in the case of Beijing’s pollution, the Chinese government tackled it with single-minded focus when its scale became too terrifying to ignore, forcing swift, coordinated action in response to public outrage. India, experts say, has lacked both political resolve and public pressure to address the problem. Voters have more pressing concerns in a country where tens of millions still live in poverty. Politicians use the crisis to attack opponents instead of seeking solutions. “A lot of it has to do with the political will and the coordination between the different governments,” said Avikal Somvanshi, a data specialist for the Clean Air Campaign at the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi. “Infighting,” he lamented, “keeps happening.” Take, for example, a recent exchange between local and national leaders in India, who have for years traded blame over who is responsible for the capital’s poor air quality. An official of the party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi compared Delhi’s chief minister – a member of an opposition party – to Hitler, said the minister had “converted his city into a gas chamber.” The Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, struck back on a TV programand asks why “the central government is sitting in hiding, locked in a room.” In China, the one-party system does not trigger any opposition; when the state prioritizes an effort, the municipalities fall in line. That happened in the case of Beijing’s pollution when the capital worked with regional officials and neighboring cities, said Zongbo Shi, an atmospheric science professor at the University of Birmingham in England. In India, where local governments are run by a number of parties, coordination is “really complicated,” Professor Shi said. In the absence of political will, economic interests prevail; Delhi is surrounded by regions that are predominantly home to farmers and laborers, who typically prioritize pressing economic needs over the environment. India is much less wealthy than China, which has enjoyed four decades of rapid growth, so Delhi cannot invest as much in environmental cleanup. India’s economic output was $2,300 per person last year, while China’s was $12,500. “It’s very difficult to trade air pollution for money — money will probably win that battle,” said Michael Greenstone, the director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. “There are dual and conflicting goals here: reducing air pollution and growing the economy.” Indian leaders have little incentive to bridge the divides, in part because cleaning the skies is low on voters’ priorities. Although air pollution has been known to kill more Indians than any other risk factor, voters ranked air quality as their 17th most pressing concern in a nationwide examination before the 2019 election, far behind jobs, healthcare and infrastructure. Only about 12 percent of respondents called air pollution a priority. In China, on the other hand, citizens – especially a growing middle class – voiced their frustration even within the authoritarian system. Some in Beijing began to call the most toxic smog attacks an “airpocalypse”. The alarm grew when studies showed that air pollution contributed to more than a million premature deaths across China each year. (Today, censorship makes it harder to voice grievances on all issues, including environmental ones.) “The will of the people can have a big impact on what happens,” Professor Greenstone said. “Until there is consistent demand, it is very, very difficult to achieve real improvements.” In India, he added, air pollution “has not taken the same central political priority as it has in China to date.” Without a concerted effort, experts say, Delhi officials have taken limited action. In recent years, the city has closed two coal-fired power plants and required the factories to switch for pipeline of natural gas from coaland there are plans to install at least 8,000 electric buses by 2025, said Jasmine Shah, a vice-chairman of Delhi government think tank which helps to create the city’s air pollution policy. But officials have also turned to more questionable solutions. On a recent afternoon, giant fans mounted at the base of a green “smog tower” threw out cool, filtered air near an imposing Sikh temple in the heart of Delhi. Nearby, a “anti-smog gun” attached to a truck sprayed water in the air. Ishmeet Kaur, a 19-year-old college student, contemplated the smog tower from across the street. “A cosmetic effort by the government,” she said, “to make us feel better.” “If only the politicians took our health seriously and did something real about this problem,” she added, coughing into a black face mask. “We’ll have to trust the weather gods.” When China acted on its own pollution problem, it took a crisis decades in the making. Since the 1980s, rapid industrialization and urbanization have fueled China’s extraordinary rise as an economic power. But its reliance on energy-intensive heavy industry to fuel this growth came at huge environmental costs. In 2013, Chinese officials released a new national air action plan, began publishing key air quality data, and publicly raised alarms about the pollution problem. As part of the national plan, Beijing was required to reduce its pollution by 25 percent. China then took a series of steps, experts said: It tightened industrial emissions standards at some factories and phased out or upgraded others that were outdated; scrapped 20 million old vehicles; upgraded 200,000 industrial boilers; and switched to natural gas from coal as the source of electricity for six million households. In some cases, the decisive action came with a cost: When officials removed the coal furnaces, for example, some homes were temporarily without winter heat. “A clear example of poor execution of a plan to make a massive difference,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, based in Helsinki, Finland. “It caused great suffering to many people.” Nonetheless, researchers found that the tough policies worked. From 2013 to 2017, the concentration of dangerous fine particles known as PM 2.5 in China’s atmosphere fell by about a third. Beijing’s air is still far from perfect, especially in winter. For more than 100 days last year, the air was considered “unhealthy for sensitive groups of people” or had a worse rating. According to Professor Greenstone of the University of Chicago, Beijing’s average level of microparticle pollution in 2020 was three times higher than that of Los Angeles. This weekend, Beijing’s smog reached levels classified as “very unhealthy.” But while the city has generally seen improvements in Delhi, the concentration of air pollutants remained at roughly the same dangerous levels between 2013 and 2020, according to Energy Policy Institute. India has long known how to fix Delhi’s air pollution. A government from 1997 white paper identified vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions as the main culprits and suggested sweeping action. During the 1990sthe city tightened emissions standards, relocated polluting industries and required thousands of its buses and auto-rickshaws to switch to CNG from diesel fuel. But Delhi continues to struggle with poor air quality. On a recent Monday, the sky was a lovely pale blue. But the color was deceiving. Air quality was classified as “poor” according to government data, giving it a “very unhealthy” index score of 294. Anything 50 or below is considered satisfactory.

• Urban Lab

Beijing Is Tackling Its Air Pollution Problem. Why Can’t New Delhi?

A decade ago, the capitals of Asia’s two largest countries both had some of the dirtiest skies in the world. On the worst days, millions were enveloped in thick gray canopies of smog that darkened the sun and besieged the lungs. Since then, one of those cities has made significant improvements. After the Chinese government declared a war against pollution in 2013, Beijing pressed ahead with a multiyear, $100 billion effort to clean its air. The authorities clamped down on factories, forced old vehicles off the road and shifted from coal to natural gas. While more still needs to be done, Beijing officials say the city now has over 100 more days of clear skies each year than when the campaign began. But in the other city, New Delhi, the air this autumn has been as foul as ever. The onset of air pollution season brought weeks of haze to the city, prompting officials to briefly halt truck traffic, close schools and ask people to work from home. Those who still ventured out coughed into their masks and rubbed their eyes. The air felt bitter on the tongue. Every year, the skies in the Delhi region turn acrid from pollution generated by millions of vehicles, the burning of stubble on surrounding farms and the use of open fires for heating and cooking in rural homes. And every year, residents are left to ask why nothing changes. The diverging fortunes come down, in no small part, to differences between China’s authoritarian system and India’s huge and messy democracy. Overall, China ranks relatively low on international indexes of environmental performance. But in the case of Beijing’s pollution, the Chinese government tackled it with single-minded focus when its scale became too daunting to ignore, forcing rapid, coordinated action in response to public anger. India, experts say, has lacked both political resolve and public pressure to address the issue. Voters have more pressing concerns in a country where tens of millions still live in poverty. Politicians use the crisis to attack adversaries, rather than seek solutions. “A lot of it has to do with the political will and the coordination between the various governments,” said Avikal Somvanshi, a data specialist for the Clean Air Campaign at the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi. “The infighting,” he lamented, “keeps happening.” Take, for instance, a recent exchange between local and national leaders in India, who have perennially traded blame over who is responsible for the capital’s poor air quality. An official in the party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi compared Delhi’s chief minister — a member of an opposition party — to Hitler, saying the minister had “converted his city into a gas chamber.” The chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, swiped back on a television show, asking why “the central government is sitting in hiding, locked up in a room.” In China, the one-party system brooks no opposition; when the central government prioritizes an initiative, local authorities fall in line. That happened in the case of Beijing’s pollution, as the capital worked in tandem with regional officials and neighboring cities, said Zongbo Shi, an atmospheric science professor at the University of Birmingham in England. In India, where local governments are run by an array of parties, coordination is “really complicated,” Professor Shi said. In the absence of political will, economic interests win out; Delhi is surrounded by regions that are home predominantly to farmers and blue-collar workers who typically prioritize urgent economic needs over the environment. India is much less wealthy than China, which has enjoyed four decades of rapid growth, so Delhi cannot invest as much in environmental cleanup. India’s economic output was $2,300 per person last year, while China’s was $12,500. “It’s very hard to trade off air pollution with money — money is likely to win that fight,” said Michael Greenstone, the head of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. “There are dual and conflicting goals here: reducing air pollution and growing the economy.” Indian leaders have little incentive to bridge the divides in part because cleaning the skies is low among voters’ priorities. Even as air pollution has been known to kill more Indians than any other risk factor, voters ranked air quality as their 17th most urgent concern in a countrywide survey before the 2019 election, well behind jobs, health care and infrastructure. Only about 12 percent of respondents called air pollution a priority. In China, by contrast, residents — especially a growing middle class — made their frustration known even within the authoritarian system. Some in Beijing began to call the most toxic bouts of smog an “airpocalypse.” Alarm grew as studies showed that air pollution was contributing to more than one million premature deaths across China each year. (Today, censorship makes it harder to express complaints on all issues, including environmental ones.) “The people’s will can have a great influence on what happens,” Professor Greenstone said. “Until there’s consistent demand, it’s very, very hard to get real improvements.” In India, he added, air pollution “has not taken the same central political priority as it has in China to date.” With no unified effort, experts say, Delhi officials have taken limited action. In recent years, the city has closed two coal-burning power plants and required factories to switch to piped natural gas from coal, and there are plans to deploy at least 8,000 electric buses by 2025, said Jasmine Shah, a vice chairman of the Delhi government think tank that helps create the city’s air pollution policy. But officials have also turned to more dubious solutions. On a recent afternoon, giant fans fitted at the bottom of a green “smog tower” threw out cool, filtered air near an imposing Sikh temple in the heart of Delhi. Nearby, an “anti-smog gun” attached to a truck sprayed water into the air. Ishmeet Kaur, a 19-year-old college student, considered the smog tower from across the street. “A cosmetic effort by the government,” she said, “to make us feel better.” “If only the politicians took our health seriously and did something real about this problem,” she added as she coughed into a black face mask. “We will have to rely on the weather gods.” When China acted on its own pollution problem, it took on a crisis decades in the making. Since the 1980s, rapid industrialization and urbanization had driven China’s extraordinary rise as an economic power. But its reliance on energy-intensive heavy industry to fuel that growth came at an immense environmental cost. In 2013, Chinese officials released a new national air action plan, began publishing important air-quality data and publicly raised alarms about the pollution problem. As part of the national plan, Beijing was required to reduce its pollution by 25 percent. China then undertook an array of steps, experts said: It tightened industrial emission standards on some factories and phased out or upgraded other outdated ones; discarded 20 million old vehicles; upgraded 200,000 industrial boilers; and switched to natural gas from coal as the source of electricity for six million households. In some cases, the decisive action came with a cost: When officials removed the coal boilers, for instance, some homes were temporarily left without winter heating. “A clear example of a poor execution of a plan to make a massive difference,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, based in Helsinki, Finland. “It caused major suffering for a lot of people.” Nonetheless, researchers found that the tough policies worked. From 2013 to 2017, the concentration of dangerous fine particulate matter known as PM 2.5 in China’s atmosphere declined by roughly a third. Beijing’s air is still far from perfect, especially in the winter. For more than 100 days last year, the air was considered “unhealthy for sensitive groups of people” or carried a worse rating. According to Professor Greenstone of the University of Chicago, Beijing’s average level of microparticle pollution in 2020 was three times that in Los Angeles. This weekend, Beijing’s smog reached levels classified as “very unhealthy.” But while the city has seen improvement overall, in Delhi, the concentration of air pollutants remained at roughly the same hazardous levels between 2013 and 2020, according to the Energy Policy Institute. India has long known how to fix Delhi’s air pollution. A 1997 government white paper identified vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions as the main culprits and suggested sweeping action. During the 1990s, the city tightened emission standards, relocated polluting industries and required thousands of its buses and auto rickshaws to switch to compressed natural gas from diesel fuel. But Delhi continues to struggle with poor air quality. On a recent Monday, the sky was a lovely light blue. But the tint was misleading. The air quality was classified as “poor,” according to government data, which gave it a “very unhealthy” index score of 294. Anything 50 or under is considered satisfactory.

• Urban Lab

Beijing Is Tackling Its Air Pollution Problem. Why Can’t New Delhi?

A decade ago, the capitals of Asia’s two largest countries both had some of the dirtiest skies in the world. On the worst days, millions were enveloped in thick gray canopies of smog that darkened the sun and besieged the lungs. Since then, one of those cities has made significant improvements. After the Chinese government declared a war against pollution in 2013, Beijing pressed ahead with a multiyear, $100 billion effort to clean its air. The authorities clamped down on factories, forced old vehicles off the road and shifted from coal to natural gas. While more still needs to be done, Beijing officials say the city now has over 100 more days of clear skies each year than when the campaign began. But in the other city, New Delhi, the air this autumn has been as foul as ever. The onset of air pollution season brought weeks of haze to the city, prompting officials to briefly halt truck traffic, close schools and ask people to work from home. Those who still ventured out coughed into their masks and rubbed their eyes. The air felt bitter on the tongue. Every year, the skies in the Delhi region turn acrid from pollution generated by millions of vehicles, the burning of stubble on surrounding farms and the use of open fires for heating and cooking in rural homes. And every year, residents are left to ask why nothing changes. The diverging fortunes come down, in no small part, to differences between China’s authoritarian system and India’s huge and messy democracy. Overall, China ranks relatively low on international indexes of environmental performance. But in the case of Beijing’s pollution, the Chinese government tackled it with single-minded focus when its scale became too daunting to ignore, forcing rapid, coordinated action in response to public anger. India, experts say, has lacked both political resolve and public pressure to address the issue. Voters have more pressing concerns in a country where tens of millions still live in poverty. Politicians use the crisis to attack adversaries, rather than seek solutions. “A lot of it has to do with the political will and the coordination between the various governments,” said Avikal Somvanshi, a data specialist for the Clean Air Campaign at the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi. “The infighting,” he lamented, “keeps happening.” Take, for instance, a recent exchange between local and national leaders in India, who have perennially traded blame over who is responsible for the capital’s poor air quality. An official in the party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi compared Delhi’s chief minister — a member of an opposition party — to Hitler, saying the minister had “converted his city into a gas chamber.” The chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, swiped back on a television show, asking why “the central government is sitting in hiding, locked up in a room.” In China, the one-party system brooks no opposition; when the central government prioritizes an initiative, local authorities fall in line. That happened in the case of Beijing’s pollution, as the capital worked in tandem with regional officials and neighboring cities, said Zongbo Shi, an atmospheric science professor at the University of Birmingham in England. In India, where local governments are run by an array of parties, coordination is “really complicated,” Professor Shi said. In the absence of political will, economic interests win out; Delhi is surrounded by regions that are home predominantly to farmers and blue-collar workers who typically prioritize urgent economic needs over the environment. India is much less wealthy than China, which has enjoyed four decades of rapid growth, so Delhi cannot invest as much in environmental cleanup. India’s economic output was $2,300 per person last year, while China’s was $12,500. “It’s very hard to trade off air pollution with money — money is likely to win that fight,” said Michael Greenstone, the head of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. “There are dual and conflicting goals here: reducing air pollution and growing the economy.” Indian leaders have little incentive to bridge the divides in part because cleaning the skies is low among voters’ priorities. Even as air pollution has been known to kill more Indians than any other risk factor, voters ranked air quality as their 17th most urgent concern in a countrywide survey before the 2019 election, well behind jobs, health care and infrastructure. Only about 12 percent of respondents called air pollution a priority. In China, by contrast, residents — especially a growing middle class — made their frustration known even within the authoritarian system. Some in Beijing began to call the most toxic bouts of smog an “airpocalypse.” Alarm grew as studies showed that air pollution was contributing to more than one million premature deaths across China each year. (Today, censorship makes it harder to express complaints on all issues, including environmental ones.) “The people’s will can have a great influence on what happens,” Professor Greenstone said. “Until there’s consistent demand, it’s very, very hard to get real improvements.” In India, he added, air pollution “has not taken the same central political priority as it has in China to date.” With no unified effort, experts say, Delhi officials have taken limited action. In recent years, the city has closed two coal-burning power plants and required factories to switch to piped natural gas from coal, and there are plans to deploy at least 8,000 electric buses by 2025, said Jasmine Shah, a vice chairman of the Delhi government think tank that helps create the city’s air pollution policy. But officials have also turned to more dubious solutions. On a recent afternoon, giant fans fitted at the bottom of a green “smog tower” threw out cool, filtered air near an imposing Sikh temple in the heart of Delhi. Nearby, an “anti-smog gun” attached to a truck sprayed water into the air. Ishmeet Kaur, a 19-year-old college student, considered the smog tower from across the street. “A cosmetic effort by the government,” she said, “to make us feel better.” “If only the politicians took our health seriously and did something real about this problem,” she added as she coughed into a black face mask. “We will have to rely on the weather gods.” When China acted on its own pollution problem, it took on a crisis decades in the making. Since the 1980s, rapid industrialization and urbanization had driven China’s extraordinary rise as an economic power. But its reliance on energy-intensive heavy industry to fuel that growth came at an immense environmental cost. In 2013, Chinese officials released a new national air action plan, began publishing important air-quality data and publicly raised alarms about the pollution problem. As part of the national plan, Beijing was required to reduce its pollution by 25 percent. China then undertook an array of steps, experts said: It tightened industrial emission standards on some factories and phased out or upgraded other outdated ones; discarded 20 million old vehicles; upgraded 200,000 industrial boilers; and switched to natural gas from coal as the source of electricity for six million households. In some cases, the decisive action came with a cost: When officials removed the coal boilers, for instance, some homes were temporarily left without winter heating. “A clear example of a poor execution of a plan to make a massive difference,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, based in Helsinki, Finland. “It caused major suffering for a lot of people.” Nonetheless, researchers found that the tough policies worked. From 2013 to 2017, the concentration of dangerous fine particulate matter known as PM 2.5 in China’s atmosphere declined by roughly a third. Beijing’s air is still far from perfect, especially in the winter. For more than 100 days last year, the air was considered “unhealthy for sensitive groups of people” or carried a worse rating. According to Professor Greenstone of the University of Chicago, Beijing’s average level of microparticle pollution in 2020 was three times that in Los Angeles. This weekend, Beijing’s smog reached levels classified as “very unhealthy.” But while the city has seen improvement overall, in Delhi, the concentration of air pollutants remained at roughly the same hazardous levels between 2013 and 2020, according to the Energy Policy Institute. India has long known how to fix Delhi’s air pollution. A 1997 government white paper identified vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions as the main culprits and suggested sweeping action. During the 1990s, the city tightened emission standards, relocated polluting industries and required thousands of its buses and auto rickshaws to switch to compressed natural gas from diesel fuel. But Delhi continues to struggle with poor air quality. On a recent Monday, the sky was a lovely light blue. But the tint was misleading. The air quality was classified as “poor,” according to government data, which gave it a “very unhealthy” index score of 294. Anything 50 or under is considered satisfactory.

• Sustainable Food Systems

CSE analysis of Indian ethnoveterinary medicine project shows a way to produce safe milk and curb antibiotic resistance

Traditional herbal medicines can replace antibiotics in dairy sector, help combat antibiotic resistance, and produce safe milk, says CSE CSE’s contentions based on encouraging results from India’s largest on-field project in dairy animals CSE conducts international webinar on ethnoveterinary medicine to discuss the findings Ethnoveterinary medicine (EVM) practices can help reduce antibiotic use and prevent the public health crisis of growing antimicrobial resistance – shows an ongoing project led by National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in India EVM practices have demonstrated high cure rates in treating cattle diseases like mastitis. This low-cost, farmer-friendly option can change the future of dairy disease management and provide antibiotic-free milk to consumers Dairy-sector stakeholders in India should enable scale-up of EVM practices, in which India offers important learnings to the world Find the webinar proceedings here: https://www.cseindia.org/ethnoveterinary-medicine-11496 New Delhi, November 21, 2022: At a global webinar organised here today to mark the ongoing World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (November 18-24), Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) made a strong pitch for introducing ethnoveterinary medicine (EVM) as an effective alternative to antibiotics for the dairy sector. EVM involves use of traditional and herbal preparations in treating diseases of cattle. CSE’s contention is based on the encouraging results of an ongoing project on EVM led by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). Unlike Covid-19, AMR is a ‘silent’ pandemic, killing many every day across the world. A big concern is antibiotic resistance in particular, which means that antibiotics are becoming ineffective to treat bacterial infections. It is a growing global public health crisis that can also impact food security, livelihood and development. Antibiotic misuse and overuse in producing food from animals is a major cause of rising AMR. “The world wants to save antibiotics to keep them effective. But so far, we have not had much success due to lack of effective alternatives. We are now excited to share these new results on the effectiveness of ethnoveterinary medicine practices in the Indian dairy sector. EVM can go a long way in replacing antibiotics in this sector and reducing antibiotic resistance. But most importantly, it is a low-cost, farmer-friendly option. It can be a game-changer in how diseases are managed without toxic chemicals in the dairy sector,” said CSE director general Sunita Narain, who is also a member of the Global Leaders Group on AMR. Narain moderated the webinar, which brought together key experts including A V Hari Kumar, deputy general manager (animal health), NDDB, India; Anil Kumar Bayati, managing director, Sabarkantha District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Limited (Sabar Dairy), India; N Punniamurthy, professor emeritus, T D University, Bengaluru and former head, EVM Herbal Research Centre, Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, India; Katrien van’t Hooft, executive director, Foundation for Natural Livestock Farming and director, Dutch Farm Experience, the Netherlands; Daniela Battaglia, animal production officer, Animal Production and Health Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Italy; Alfonso Zecconi, full professor, Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases of Domestic Animals, DVM and co-founder, One Health Unit, University of Milan, Italy; Amit Khurana, director, Sustainable Food Systems Programme, CSE; and Rajeshwari Sinha, programme manager, Sustainable Food Systems Programme, CSE. CSE analysis of the NDDB project CSE analysed results of ‘Mastitis Control Popularization Programme (MCPP)’ started in 2014 by the NDDB, with technical support from the Trans-Disciplinary University, Karnataka and piloted at Sabar Dairy in Gujarat. At present, MCCP is being implemented by 16 milk unions and milk producer companies across eight Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. As in October 2022, about 7.8 lakh disease cases were treated across 25 unions and producer companies for 29 diseases with a cure rate of 80.4 per cent. Out of these, over six lakh cases (77 per cent of the total) were of mastitis, fever, diarrhoea, and indigestion, with a cure rate of 81.2 per cent. Antibiotics are typically used in these disease/conditions, in addition to treating wounds, retention of placenta, bloating, lumpy skin disease and prolapse. In the case of mastitis, a 78.4 per cent cure rate was seen in 2.55 lakh cases (32.6 per cent of the total 7.8 lakhs) treated across 25 unions and producer companies. For fever, the cure rate was 82.2 per cent (out of 1.63 lakh cases); for diarrhoea, it was 84.4 per cent (out of 1.51 lakh cases); for indigestion, 83.4 per cent (out of 32,000 cases); and for lumpy skin disease, it was over 66 per cent (out of 3,000 cases). Lumpy skin disease is a viral disease, an outbreak of which happened in different parts of India during July 2022. Speaking at the webinar, A V Hari Kumar of NDDB said: “We always work with small and marginal farmers who are our core target group. Cost efficacy is therefore the prime consideration. Whatever technology that is taken to the field needs to cost effective. When we started collecting the data on EVM, we were convinced that this could be a good alternative because of its cost efficacy.” EVM’s effectiveness is indicated by data received from Sabar dairy in Gujarat, which had accounted for about 67 per cent of the total cases treated for mastitis, fever, diarrhoea and indigestion – the dairy showed a large reduction in antibiotic purchases over last five years. From antibiotics purchased for Rs 2.1 crore in 2017-18, it only bought Rs 63 lakh worth in 2021-22. The union also recorded a decrease of about 2.29 lakh veterinary calls from 2017-18 till December 2020, and an overall saving of Rs 1.9 crore on medicine costs, including antibiotics, for the same period. “In our experience, at the village level, the treatment using EVM is as effective as allopathic medicines, which cost about 10 times more. This has led to a very high acceptance among farmers,” said Anil Kumar Bayati Sabar Dairy. Says Amit Khurana, director, sustainable food systems programme, CSE: “It is clear that EVM is very effective in several diseases which are common and highly prevalent and antibiotics are otherwise used to treat them. On an average, four out of five cases are getting cured.” “This means a lot of antibiotic overuse and misuse can be avoided. Those which are of critical importance to humans can also be conserved to save lives. This also means farmers can reduce their losses due to presence of antibiotics in milk and earn more by selling milk for more days. Consumer exposure to antibiotics in milk can also be avoided,” adds Khurana. Speaking in the webinar, Katrien van’t Hooft said: “We have worked on a similar pilot project in Ethiopia which have been successful in improving cattle health, reducing mortality, bringing up farmers’ income by 30 per cent. We now have proof of concept that it not only works within India but also beyond.” CSE researchers recommend that the Central and state governments should promote upscaling ethnoveterinary medicines at all levels (like that of big and small milk producers, procurement agencies, etc) through suitable policies and programmes. This should involve: Creating awareness among veterinarians, para-veterinarians, farmers, milk procurement agencies and dairy collectives through training and capacity building Developing a research agenda, promoting pilot projects across states for different diseases and formulations, and publishing results for greater learning and trust building among stakeholders Modifying curriculum for veterinarians to include ethnoveterinary medicines Making available ethnoveterinary medicine preparations/products and appropriately regulating them for price and quality Making ethnoveterinary medicine ingredients/preparations available and accessible through supporting herbal gardens and manufacturing/mixing plants such as through self-help groups, local producers, community as well as small and medium enterprises Monitoring ethnoveterinary medicine interventions and documenting their impacts on cost, livelihood, health, antibiotic residues, reduction in AMR load etc Incentivising antibiotic-free milk or milk produced without use of antibiotics Making consumers aware about ethnoveterinary medicines in dairy and its role in reducing antibiotic residues in milk and AMR Incentivising cattle dung which is not treated with antibiotics for use in crops as organic manure. Concluding the webinar, Narain said: “With EVM practices, there is a huge opportunity to reduce antibiotic misuse and over-use in the big Indian dairy sector. Governments and other stakeholders have to come together to make this happen. If this solution from India can be adopted in some other parts of the world, specifically low- and middle-income countries, it will be a big step in the fight against AMR, as they will struggle to bear its health and economic burden”, she concluded.

• Sustainable Food Systems

CSE’s contentions based on encouraging results from India’s largest on-field project in dairy animal

At a global webinar organised here today to mark the ongoing World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (November 18-24), Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) made a strong pitch for introducing ethnoveterinary medicine (EVM) as an effective alternative to antibiotics for the dairy sector. EVM involves use of traditional and herbal preparations in treating diseases of cattle. CSE’s contention is based on the encouraging results of an ongoing project on EVM led by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). Unlike Covid-19, AMR is a ‘silent’ pandemic, killing many every day across the world. A big concern is antibiotic resistance in particular, which means that antibiotics are becoming ineffective to treat bacterial infections. It is a growing global public health crisis that can also impact food security, livelihood and development. Antibiotic misuse and overuse in producing food from animals is a major cause of rising AMR. “The world wants to save antibiotics to keep them effective. But so far, we have not had much success due to lack of effective alternatives. We are now excited to share these new results on the effectiveness of ethnoveterinary medicine practices in the Indian dairy sector. EVM can go a long way in replacing antibiotics in this sector and reducing antibiotic resistance. But most importantly, it is a low-cost, farmer-friendly option. It can be a game-changer in how diseases are managed without toxic chemicals in the dairy sector,” said CSE director general Sunita Narain, who is also a member of the Global Leaders Group on AMR. Narain moderated the webinar, which brought together key experts including A V Hari Kumar, deputy general manager (animal health), NDDB, India; Anil Kumar Bayati, managing director, Sabarkantha District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Limited (Sabar Dairy), India; N Punniamurthy, professor emeritus, T D University, Bengaluru and former head, EVM Herbal Research Centre, Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, India; Katrien van’t Hooft, executive director, Foundation for Natural Livestock Farming and director, Dutch Farm Experience, the Netherlands; Daniela Battaglia, animal production officer, Animal Production and Health Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Italy; Alfonso Zecconi, full professor, Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases of Domestic Animals, DVM and co-founder, One Health Unit, University of Milan, Italy; Amit Khurana, director, Sustainable Food Systems Programme, CSE; and Rajeshwari Sinha, programme manager, Sustainable Food Systems Programme, CSE. CSE analysis of the NDDB project CSE analysed results of ‘Mastitis Control Popularization Programme (MCPP)’ started in 2014 by the NDDB, with technical support from the Trans-Disciplinary University, Karnataka and piloted at Sabar Dairy in Gujarat. At present, MCCP is being implemented by 16 milk unions and milk producer companies across eight Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. As in October 2022, about 7.8 lakh disease cases were treated across 25 unions and producer companies for 29 diseases with a cure rate of 80.4 per cent. Out of these, over six lakh cases (77 per cent of the total) were of mastitis, fever, diarrhoea, and indigestion, with a cure rate of 81.2 per cent. Antibiotics are typically used in these disease/conditions, in addition to treating wounds, retention of placenta, bloating, lumpy skin disease and prolapse. In the case of mastitis, a 78.4 per cent cure rate was seen in 2.55 lakh cases (32.6 per cent of the total 7.8 lakhs) treated across 25 unions and producer companies. For fever, the cure rate was 82.2 per cent (out of 1.63 lakh cases); for diarrhoea, it was 84.4 per cent (out of 1.51 lakh cases); for indigestion, 83.4 per cent (out of 32,000 cases); and for lumpy skin disease, it was over 66 per cent (out of 3,000 cases). Lumpy skin disease is a viral disease, an outbreak of which happened in different parts of India during July 2022. Speaking at the webinar, A V Hari Kumar of NDDB said: “We always work with small and marginal farmers who are our core target group. Cost efficacy is therefore the prime consideration. Whatever technology that is taken to the field needs to cost effective. When we started collecting the data on EVM, we were convinced that this could be a good alternative because of its cost efficacy.” EVM’s effectiveness is indicated by data received from Sabar dairy in Gujarat, which had accounted for about 67 per cent of the total cases treated for mastitis, fever, diarrhoea and indigestion – the dairy showed a large reduction in antibiotic purchases over last five years. From antibiotics purchased for Rs 2.1 crore in 2017-18, it only bought Rs 63 lakh worth in 2021-22. The union also recorded a decrease of about 2.29 lakh veterinary calls from 2017-18 till December 2020, and an overall saving of Rs 1.9 crore on medicine costs, including antibiotics, for the same period. “In our experience, at the village level, the treatment using EVM is as effective as allopathic medicines, which cost about 10 times more. This has led to a very high acceptance among farmers,” said Anil Kumar Bayati Sabar Dairy. Says Amit Khurana, director, sustainable food systems programme, CSE: “It is clear that EVM is very effective in several diseases which are common and highly prevalent and antibiotics are otherwise used to treat them. On an average, four out of five cases are getting cured.” “This means a lot of antibiotic overuse and misuse can be avoided. Those which are of critical importance to humans can also be conserved to save lives. This also means farmers can reduce their losses due to presence of antibiotics in milk and earn more by selling milk for more days. Consumer exposure to antibiotics in milk can also be avoided,” adds Khurana. Speaking in the webinar, Katrien van’t Hooft said: “We have worked on a similar pilot project in Ethiopia which have been successful in improving cattle health, reducing mortality, bringing up farmers’ income by 30 per cent. We now have proof of concept that it not only works within India but also beyond.” CSE researchers recommend that the Central and state governments should promote upscaling ethnoveterinary medicines at all levels (like that of big and small milk producers, procurement agencies, etc) through suitable policies and programmes. This should involve: Creating awareness among veterinarians, para-veterinarians, farmers, milk procurement agencies and dairy collectives through training and capacity building Developing a research agenda, promoting pilot projects across states for different diseases and formulations, and publishing results for greater learning and trust building among stakeholders Modifying curriculum for veterinarians to include ethnoveterinary medicines Making available ethnoveterinary medicine preparations/products and appropriately regulating them for price and quality Making ethnoveterinary medicine ingredients/preparations available and accessible through supporting herbal gardens and manufacturing/mixing plants such as through self-help groups, local producers, community as well as small and medium enterprises Monitoring ethnoveterinary medicine interventions and documenting their impacts on cost, livelihood, health, antibiotic residues, reduction in AMR load etc Incentivising antibiotic-free milk or milk produced without use of antibiotics Making consumers aware about ethnoveterinary medicines in dairy and its role in reducing antibiotic residues in milk and AMR Incentivising cattle dung which is not treated with antibiotics for use in crops as organic manure. Concluding the webinar, Narain said: “With EVM practices, there is a huge opportunity to reduce antibiotic misuse and over-use in the big Indian dairy sector. Governments and other stakeholders have to come together to make this happen. If this solution from India can be adopted in some other parts of the world, specifically low- and middle-income countries, it will be a big step in the fight against AMR, as they will struggle to bear its health and economic burden”, she concluded.

• Sustainable Food Systems

Traditional herbal medicines can replace antibiotics in dairy sector, says CSE

At a global webinar organised to mark the ongoing World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (November 18-24), Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) made a strong pitch for introducing ethnoveterinary medicine (EVM) as an effective alternative to antibiotics for the dairy sector. EVM involves use of traditional and herbal preparations in treating diseases of cattle. CSE’s contention is based on the encouraging results of an ongoing project on EVM led by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). Unlike Covid-19, AMR is a ‘silent’ pandemic, killing many every day across the world. A big concern is antibiotic resistance in particular, which means that antibiotics are becoming ineffective to treat bacterial infections. It is a growing global public health crisis that can also impact food security, livelihood and development. Antibiotic misuse and overuse in producing food from animals is a major cause of rising AMR. “The world wants to save antibiotics to keep them effective. But so far, we have not had much success due to lack of effective alternatives. We are now excited to share these new results on the effectiveness of ethnoveterinary medicine practices in the Indian dairy sector,” said CSE director general Sunita Narain, who is also a member of the Global Leaders Group on AMR. “EVM can go a long way in replacing antibiotics in this sector and reducing antibiotic resistance. But most importantly, it is a low-cost, farmer-friendly option. It can be a game-changer in how diseases are managed without toxic chemicals in the dairy sector,” she added. CSE analysed results of ‘Mastitis Control Popularization Programme (MCPP)’ started in 2014 by the NDDB, with technical support from the Trans-Disciplinary University, Karnataka and piloted at Sabar Dairy in Gujarat. At present, MCCP is being implemented by 16 milk unions and milk producer companies across eight Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. A V Hari Kumar of NDDB said: “We always work with small and marginal farmers who are our core target group. Cost efficacy is therefore the prime consideration. Whatever technology that is taken to the field needs to cost effective. When we started collecting the data on EVM, we were convinced that this could be a good alternative because of its cost efficacy.” EVM’s effectiveness is indicated by data received from Sabar dairy in Gujarat, which had accounted for about 67 per cent of the total cases treated for mastitis, fever, diarrhoea and indigestion – the dairy showed a large reduction in antibiotic purchases over last five years. From antibiotics purchased for Rs 2.1 crore in 2017-18, it only bought Rs 63 lakh worth in 2021-22. The union also recorded a decrease of about 2.29 lakh veterinary calls from 2017-18 till December 2020, and an overall saving of Rs 1.9 crore on medicine costs, including antibiotics, for the same period. “In our experience, at the village level, the treatment using EVM is as effective as allopathic medicines, which cost about 10 times more. This has led to a very high acceptance among farmers,” said Anil Kumar Bayati Sabar Dairy. Says Amit Khurana, director, sustainable food systems programme, CSE: “It is clear that EVM is very effective in several diseases which are common and highly prevalent and antibiotics are otherwise used to treat them. On an average, four out of five cases are getting cured.” “This means a lot of antibiotic overuse and misuse can be avoided. Those which are of critical importance to humans can also be conserved to save lives. This also means farmers can reduce their losses due to presence of antibiotics in milk and earn more by selling milk for more days. Consumer exposure to antibiotics in milk can also be avoided,” adds Khurana. CSE researchers recommend that the Central and state governments should promote upscaling ethnoveterinary medicines at all levels (like that of big and small milk producers, procurement agencies, etc) through suitable policies and programmes.

• Sustainable Food Systems

Antimicrobial Resistance: New CSE report focuses on major ethnoveterinary medicine programme

Delhi-based think-tank, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), will release a special report titled Ethnoveterinary medicine: An alternative to antibiotics for the dairy sector to mark World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW). World AMR Awareness Week (WAAW)- Celebrated globally every year from November 18-24 to create awareness and understanding of the issue. This year, the theme is “Preventing Antimicrobial Resistance Together”. Emphasised the prevention of AMR through a ‘One Health” approach. The increasing threat of AMR- Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been recognised as a ‘silent pandemic’ and is a global public health threat today. Due to AMR, antibiotics are becoming ineffective and infectious diseases are becoming difficult to treat. Some 4.95 million deaths were associated with, and 1.95 million deaths directly attributable to bacterial AMR across the world in 2019. AMR is also likely to heavily impact livelihood and economies. AMR and One Health Approach- The ‘One Health’ approach is the best way to address AMR since resistance against antimicrobials is operated among human, animal and environmental sectors. It accelerates due to the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials in human health, animal health, food-animal production, aquaculture and crop production. Waste from farms, factories, community and healthcare settings contributes to the emergence and spread of AMR through environmental routes. Lack of authentic information on AMR and antimicrobial use (AMU) in the veterinary sector is a major limitation. Prevention measures- Adoption of strategies and approaches that can reduce the need for antimicrobials Better sanitation Access to clean water and appropriate hand hygiene Better biosecurity Timely vaccinations Use of alternatives and appropriate waste management Preventing pollution and overuse of chemicals What is Ethnoveterinary medicine- Ethnoveterinary medicine (EVM) involves the use of traditional/herbal preparations in treating diseases of cattle. Advantage of Ethnoveterinary medicine- Reduces Antibiotics use Traditional practice of herbal medicines for poultry health management can diminish the cost of production thereby giving more benefit to the farmers. Farmers’ self-dependence. Preserve herbs. User-friendly, Eco friendly. Provide some intervention for viral diseases. Cosr- effective

• Climate Change and Green Economy

COP27 climate talks: what succeeded, what failed and what’s next

Researchers are frustrated at the glacial pace of decarbonisation — but cheered the commitment to create a ‘loss and damage’ fund. The 27th United Nations climate conference (COP27) ended on Sunday morning with researchers largely frustrated at the lack of any ambition to phase out fossil fuels. However, there was one silver lining: delegates from low and middle income countries (LMICs) came away with an agreement on a new ‘loss and damage’ fund to help them cover the costs of climate-change impacts. The final 10-page summary text, which was agreed on 20 November, says that limiting global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels requires “rapid, deep and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions” by 2030. But calls to phase out fossil fuels were blocked by oil-producing states, and some delegates struggled to find reasons to be cheerful at the glacial pace of decarbonization. Many blamed the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for a lack of progress on fossil fuels. ‘Actions, not just words’: Egypt’s climate scientists share COP27 hopes “It’s clear that the window for 1.5 is closing fast,” says Chukwumerije Okerere, who studies climate governance at the Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike Nigeria. According to some, it might not be possible to keep this goal “unless there is massive carbon dioxide removal on an unprecedented scale”, he adds. A record 45,000 people registered to attend COP27, leading some to question whether such a format is appropriate to tackling a planetary emergency. “The negotiations that are happening are completely devoid of reality,” says Sunita Narain, director-general of the Centre for Science and Environment, an environment research organization in New Delhi, India. Although there is value in bringing people together to share ideas and build momentum, she fears that the core purpose of the meeting — to push world leaders to commit to stronger actions and hold them accountable — has been lost. “I have never seen anything like this. We’ve reduced the whole thing into a grand spectacle,” she says. Researchers and activists attending the talks for the first time described disbelief as government negotiators spent days going back-and-forth over single words in the text. “I am just, quite simply shocked about the [negotiating] process I have seen,” says Blutus Mbambi from the Centre for Climate Change Action and Advocacy in Lusaka, Zambia. “But we will keep on advocating. We will keep on pushing.” The fight for finance Representatives from low and middle income countries (LMICs) and China were quietly confident that COP27 would lead to the creation of a new loss-and-damage climate fund when this was added to the agenda at the start of the conference. The fund would support countries suffering from the effects of climate change, such as Somalia, where more than 7 million people are facing hunger from an ongoing drought; or Pakistan, where floods this year caused around $30 billion worth of damage. A flood-affected student walks past a deluged government primary school in Chandan Mori, in Dadu district, Pakistan. Earlier this year, severe flooding left around a third of Pakistan underwater and displaced millions of people.Credit: Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty US climate envoy John Kerry arrived at COP27 opposing such a fund, and claimed that existing funds could pay for climate-related losses and damages. US negotiators also opposed the principle that high emitters should accept liability for their historical emissions, fearing this could lead to claims running potentially into trillions of dollars. The European Union was also sceptical initially, but eventually changed its position, which put pressure on the US to follow. The fine print — including how much will go into the fund and who will contribute — will have to be discussed at next year’s conference. In a first for a climate COP, the final text also backs reform of giant lenders such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which are lynchpins of the global economy. The IMF has $1 trillion available to lend to countries in financial distress, but only a small fraction of this is climate finance. The COP’s endorsement of reform is significant, says Sarah Colenbrander, who studies climate finance at the Overseas Development Institute, a think tank in London. That’s because it comes from countries who are also shareholders in these institutions, and can make change happen. Energy crisis impact The energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine loomed large during the discussions. High natural gas prices have reshaped global energy markets and pushed some wealthy European countries to temporarily fall back on coal while looking abroad for new sources of natural gas. Climate change is costing trillions — and low-income countries are paying the price Although the negotiations received a boost from a separate deal announced at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, in which wealthy countries agreed to provide $20 billion to help Indonesia wean itself off coal, much of the attention at COP27 was on the European rush for natural gas. Germany has signed a deal with Egypt to advance green hydrogen as well as liquified natural gas exports, while other governments and companies are courting projects in countries such as Senegal, Tanzania and Algeria. European leaders insist these measures are short-term fixes that won’t detract from their long-term commitments, but the optics are very bad, says Narain. Before the crisis, the rhetoric from the developed world was that nobody was going to fund fossil fuel projects in developing countries, she says. “But now everybody is asking us to increase supply.” These tensions had tangible impacts on the negotiations at COP27. Language calling for a phase out of fossil fuels was jettisoned from the final text, while new wording was added calling for accelerated development of “low-emission” energy systems, which many fear will be used to justify further natural gas development. The failure to rein in fossil-fuel interests could also undermine the success on loss and damage negotiations, says Joab Okanda, senior Africa advisor for the advocacy organization Christian Aid, based in Nairobi, Kenya. “More fossil fuels means more loss and damage.” Mohamed Salem Nashwan, who studies construction engineering at the Arab Academy of Science, Technology and Maritime Transport in Cairo, is not confident that there will be much progress on fossil fuels at COP28, which is due to be held in Dubai next year. “The host is heavily linked to the fossil fuel industries,” he says. Somalis displaced by drought and war wait for water at the Sebedow Camp. The COP27 agreement mentioned the importance of protecting food and water supplies.Credit: Scott Peterson/Getty Food focus The COP27 deal also says that “safeguarding food security and ending hunger” is a fundamental priority, and that communities can better protect themselves from climate effects if water systems are protected and conserved. By contrast, last year’s Glasgow Climate Pact made no mention of agriculture, food or water. “There is real progress in terms of words,” says Joachim von Braun, an agricultural economist at Bonn University in Germany. The new additions are welcome, says Claudia Sadoff, executive director of CGIAR, the global network of agricultural research centres, but she adds that “the text on the food crisis is not supported by [government] actions that need to be taken”. COP27 climate summit: what scientists are watching COP27 saw little by way of new dedicated funding for food systems from governments. By contrast, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation pledged to spend US$1.4 billion over four years to help small-holder farmers address the immediate and long term impacts of climate change. “Every moment the world delays action, more people suffer, and the solutions become more complex and costly,” the foundation’s chief executive Mark Suzman said in a statement. Absent from the text is any reference to the IPCC’s estimate that food systems are responsible for between 21% and 37% of global emissions. “The opportunities for ‘carbon farming’ and land use change to make a contribution to [climate] mitigation are ignored,” says von Braun.