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According to a global report published by The Lancet journal, human-caused PM 2.5 pollution was responsible for more than 17 lakh deaths in India in 2022 – a 38% increase since 2010 – with fossil fuel use contributing to 44% of the deaths.
‘The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change 2025 report’ states that 2.69 lakh people died due to the use of petrol for road transport.
Estimates also suggest that premature deaths due to outdoor air pollution will cause financial losses of $339.4 billion in India in 2022 – about 9.5% of the country’s GDP.
An international team of 128 experts from 71 academic institutions and United Nations agencies, led by University College London, was involved in the production of the ninth edition of the report.
The authors said the report, published ahead of the 30th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP30), provides the most comprehensive assessment to date of the links between climate change and health. These findings are significant in the backdrop of Delhi’s persistently high levels of air pollution, with air quality shifting between “poor” and “very poor” over the past few days.
Read more: Delhi-NCR’s air quality remains ‘very poor’, AQI recorded at 428 in Anand Vihar
Cloud-seeding trials were conducted in parts of the national capital like Burari, Karol Bagh and Mayur Vihar last week in an effort to tackle pollution. However, environmentalists describe it as a “short-term measure” that fails to tackle the root causes of the city’s declining air quality.
“There were more than 1,718,000 deaths due to anthropogenic air pollution (PM 2.5) in 2022 in India, an increase of 38% since 2010. Fossil fuels (coal and liquefied gas) contributed to 752,000 (44%) of these deaths in 2022,” the authors wrote in a country-related data sheet accompanying the Lancet report. They found that fossil fuels continue to account for almost all road transport energy in India (96%), and electricity accounts for only 0.3%.
The report said that by 2022, coal will still account for almost half (46%) of the total energy supply and three-quarters of the total electricity in India, while renewable energy accounts for 2% and 10% respectively.
The authors said that continued overdependence on fossil fuels and failure to adapt to climate change is impacting people’s lives, health and livelihoods. The analysis of national policies also shows that India’s preparedness for low carbon transition has declined by 2% by 2023.
According to the findings, an average of 10,200 deaths every year during 2020-2024 in India can be traced to PM 2.5 pollution from forest fires – a 28% increase from the rate during 2003-2012.
Additionally, 18% of domestic energy in 2022 came from electricity, while 58% came from “highly polluting” solid biofuels.
Household air pollution due to the use of polluting fuels was associated with an estimated 113 deaths per 100,000 population, with mortality rates seen higher in rural areas than in urban areas.