A new report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) says about a third of the 2bn children in the world, who are breathing toxic air live in northern India and neighbouring countries, risking serious health effects including damage to their lungs, brains and other organs. Of that global total, 300mn kids are exposed to pollution levels more than six times higher than standards set by the World Health Organisation (WHO), including 220mn in South Asia.
The air pollution in the Indian capital New Delhi, among the world’s worst, spikes every winter because of the season’s weak winds and countless garbage fires set alight to help people stay warm. Even days before the city erupted in annual fireworks celebrations for the recent Diwali festival, recorded levels of tiny, lung-clogging particulate matter known as PM 2.5 were considered dangerous at well above 300 micrograms per cubic metre. On the third day, as a result of the fireworks spree, the city was recording PM 2.5 levels above 900 mcg per cubic metre—more than 90 times higher than the WHO recommendation of no more than 10 mcg per cubic metre.
Officials said the high pollution levels were made worse by the ongoing burning of spent crops in agricultural fields in the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana. Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment, a Delhi-based research and lobbying organisation, cited some local studies that indicate up to a third of Delhi’s children have impaired lung function and respiratory diseases like asthma.
Children face much higher health risks from air pollution than adults. Children breathe twice as quickly, taking in more air in relation to their body weight, while their brains and immune systems are still developing and vulnerable.
“The impact is commensurately shocking,” with 600,000 children younger than five across the world dying every year from air pollution-related diseases, Unicef executive director Anthony Lake said in the report released on October 31. Counting 2bn children breathing unhealthy air—out of a total 2.26bn world population of children—means the vast majority are being exposed to levels of pollution considered by the WHO to be unsafe.
Out of that 2bn breathing toxic air, the report puts 620mn of them in South Asia – mostly northern India. Another 520mn children are breathing toxic air in Africa, and 450mn in East Asia, mainly China, according to the report, which combined satellite images of pollution and ground data with demographic patterns to determine which populations fell into the highest risk areas.
Since being identified as one of the world’s most polluted cities in recent years, New Delhi has tried to clean its air. It has barred cargo trucks from city streets, required drivers to buy newer cars that meet higher emissions standards and carried out several weeks of experimental traffic control, limiting the number of cars on the road. But other pollution sources, including construction dust and cooking fires fuelled by wood or kerosene, continue unabated.
A few days ago, the city launched a smartphone application, ‘Change the Air’ inviting residents to send photos and complaints about illegal pollution sources, from the burning of leaves and garbage in public parks to construction crews working without dust control measures. More needs to be done, not only in northern India, but also across all locations around the world, affected by air pollution.