Pollution kills 54,000 people in Delhi in 2020: Greenpeace Southeast Asia Report

What is the News?
Greenpeace, an environmental NGO released a report titled “Greenpeace Southeast Asia analysis of the cost to the economy due to air pollution”.

About the report:

• The report is based on a Cost Estimator. It is an online tool that estimates the real-time health impact and economic cost of fine particulate matters (PM 2.5) in major world cities.
• The tool was deployed in a collaboration between Greenpeace Southeast Asia, IQAir and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

Note: PM2.5 refers to fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter. Exposure to PM2.5 is considered the foremost environmental risk factor for deaths globally. It is attributed to 4.2 million premature deaths in 2015.

Impact of Air Pollution Related Deaths:

• Greenpeace uses an approach called ‘willingness-to-pay’. In this approach, a lost life year or a year lived with a disability is converted to money by the amount that people are willing to pay in order to avoid this negative outcome.

Indian Cities covered in the report:

• Six Indian cities namely Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Lucknow featured in the report.

Key Findings:

• Globally, in the five most populous cities — Delhi, Mexico City, São Paulo, Shanghai, and Tokyo, PM 2.5 air pollution caused approximately 1,60,000 deaths.
• Delhi: Air pollution claimed approximately 54,000 lives in Delhi in 2020. It resulted in air pollution-related economic losses of 8.1 billion USD (58,895 crores). It amounts to 13% of Delhi’s annual GDP.
• Other Indian Cities: The damage is equally worse in other Indian cities:
  • An estimated 25,000 avoidable deaths in Mumbai in 2020 have been attributed to air pollution.
  • Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad estimated an approximate 12,000, 11,000, and 11,000 avoidable deaths respectively due to polluted air.

Source: The Hindu