If air pollution levels in the Capital adhered to World Health Organization (WHO) standards, a typical Delhiite would live 10 years longer, a report released by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute on Monday stated.
The report, titled “Introducing the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI)”, said the average Indian would live 4.3 years longer if the country’s air quality met the WHO standards, which are more stringent than that of the Indian government. In comparison, the average resident of Beijing and Los Angeles would lose six years and one year respectively due to high pollution, the report also said.
The report said that the concentration of fine particulate matter had increased by an overall 69% in India in the past two decades. The sustained exposure to particulate pollution used to reduce life expectancy by 2.2 years in 1998.
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As of 2016, the average life expectancy at birth could have gone up from 69 years to 73 years if the WHO standards were complied with, the report said. This would be a greater gain than that from solving the problems of unsafe water and poor sanitation, the report added.
“The AQLI reveals that the average person on the planet is losing 1.8 years of life expectancy due to particulate pollution exceeding the WHO guideline — more than devastating communicable diseases like tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, behavioural killers like cigarette smoking, and even war,” the report read.
Apart from India, China and Bangladesh were the other countries witnessing a large loss in life expectancy due to pollution, the report further stated.
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