India’s worsening air pollution needs a coordinated response like the one the country mounted against Covid-19, former World Health Organization chief scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan has said, and the Soumya Swaminathan air pollution call comes as cities across the north face another season of toxic air. In an interview with India Today, she described the government’s current approach as too little, too late, and warned that the health consequences fall hardest on pregnant women and children. She is now chair of the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation and co-chair of Our Common Air, a global commission on clean air.
The Soumya Swaminathan air pollution warning covers effects beyond the lungs. She pointed to impaired brain development in children, rising lung cancer risks, diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases, and said pollution is a public health emergency that India can no longer afford to ignore. Nine in ten people in the world breathe air that does not meet WHO standards, and she has put the global death toll at eight million a year, higher than tobacco. Low and middle-income countries in Asia and Africa carry the heaviest burden.
The comparison with Covid is about how the response was organised. During the pandemic, scientists around the world worked with one mission, and vaccines and diagnostics were developed at record speed. The Soumya Swaminathan air pollution argument is that the same mission-mode approach is needed for clean air, with action driven from the top and across sectors, instead of the fragmented efforts that have produced little change so far.
Soumya Swaminathan air pollution and the Covid comparison
She has proposed a National Clean Air Authority with powers to enforce standards, a regulator on the lines of the Reserve Bank of India or the Securities and Exchange Board of India. She has said clean air by 2030 is achievable, and has drawn a parallel with the Swachh Bharat Mission and the Covid vaccination drive, both backed closely by the Prime Minister. The agencies now responsible for cutting air pollution, she has said, either lack enforcement muscle or have limited jurisdiction, and have not had the impact needed. The Soumya Swaminathan air pollution proposal is for a body that can act across states and sectors rather than advise from the sidelines.
She has described air pollution as a structural problem, not a matter of blame. In a lecture this year she said people blame each other or farmers burning crop residue, but the causes lie in how cities and public transport are designed and in the failure to implement environmental guidelines. Air cannot be contained within national boundaries, she said, so countries need to work together on pollution just as they had to on the pandemic. The Soumya Swaminathan air pollution message is that the sources are known and the fixes exist, and what is missing is the will to enforce them.
The warning comes as Delhi and other northern cities face the annual winter spike, when cold air traps smoke from vehicles, industry, construction and crop burning close to the ground. The graded response action plan, known as GRAP, brings in restrictions in stages as air quality worsens, from curbs on construction to limits on vehicles. The measures have been criticised as reactive, arriving after the air has already turned hazardous.
Soumya Swaminathan air pollution and the case for a regulator
The Soumya Swaminathan air pollution case also rests on cost: she has put the annual economic cost at 95 billion dollars, about 3 per cent of gross domestic product. Rural women face some of the worst exposure, with fine particulate matter above 600 in some settings, far above the safe limit. The burden reaches beyond cities: indoor smoke from cooking fuels adds to the exposure for women and children at home.
Her proposal is for a body with statutory powers, driven from the highest level of government, that can set and enforce standards across states and sectors, and be held to account for results. She has said the model should be a mission like the polio eradication drive, with a clear target and a deadline. The Soumya Swaminathan air pollution call is for that kind of campaign, and she has said the politics of it should be bipartisan, since clean air is not a party question.
The interview was published on 10 November, as air quality across the north stayed poor to severe and hospitals reported more patients with breathing difficulty. Swaminathan said the country had shown during Covid that it could move fast when it treated a threat as an emergency, and air pollution deserves the same treatment. The Soumya Swaminathan air pollution warning ends with that comparison, and with the claim that the tools to fix the problem are already in hand.