A person living in Rohtak could live up to eight years longer if the air quality was kept within the standards prescribed by the World Health Organization (WHO), said Michael Greenstone, noted economist and director, Energy Policy Institute, University of Chicago, on Tuesday.
He was speaking at the Chaudhary Ranbir Singh Memorial Lecture organised by Maharshi Dayanand University’s Ranbir Singh chair at the Radhakrishnan Auditorium in Rohtak.
Special lecture
Prof. Greenstone, who delivered his special lecture on ‘Air Quality In India: Health Challenge and Some Feasible Solutions’, has earlier served as the chief economist for former United States President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Prof. Greenstone’s study indicated that the average PM 2.5 concentration in Rohtak was 95, almost 10 times higher than the limits prescribed by the WHO, and only marginally lower than 114 for the national capital, while the national average for India is 54, more than five times the WHO standard.
He said most people are not even aware of the true cost of pollution and the threat it poses to our life. He said the problem has to be seen in context of what it is doing to our lives.
“Around the world today, people are breathing air that represents a serious risk to their health. But the way this risk is communicated is very often opaque and confusing, translating air pollution concentrations into colours, like red, brown, orange, and green. What those colours mean for people’s well-being has always been unclear,” said Prof. Greenstone.
“My colleagues and I have developed the AQLI, where the ‘L’ stands for ‘life,’ to address these shortcomings. It takes particulate air pollution concentrations and converts them into perhaps the most important metric that exists — life expectancy,” he added.
The AQLI reveals that India and China, which make up 36% of the world’s population, account for 73% of all years of life lost due to particulate pollution.
Average life expectancy
On average, people in India will live 4.3 years longer if the country meet the WHO guidelines — expanding the average life expectancy at birth from 69 years to 73 years.
In the US, about a third of the population lives in areas not in compliance with the WHO guidelines.
Private member bill
Speaking at the occasion, Rohtak MP Deepender Singh Hooda, who also brought in a private member bill on Right to Clean Air, said the declining air quality has already reached dangerous levels and it was time we took a more coordinated approach towards solving the problem.
