Zam-Zam
Senator
Is Beijing the world's most polluted city? Not even close......
Near daily stats show that the air in India's capital is far more polluted than in Beijing, where a public outcry prompted the government to shut down factories and restrict the use of cars. And in New Delhi, rickshaw drivers, traffic cops and the underclass that travels by bus and bicycle are the worst affected, according to one new study.
But New Delhi’s problem might not be a lack of strict regulation. Instead, its overly harsh penalties for polluting the air could actually be to blame.
The 1981 air pollution control act — India's answer to America's 1963 Clean Air Act — gives regulators the power to ban dirty fuels, cut off water and electricity to factories and bring criminal charges against violators. But there's no provision allowing them to levy fines. The harsh measures at regulators' disposal are viewed as “nuclear options” and rarely used.
“Clearly, criminal liability is not working,” says Shibani Ghosh, an environmental lawyer at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research, an independent think tank.
“We certainly need to have criminal penalties for more egregious violations of the law. But criminal penalties also come with a higher evidentiary burden, because charges have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Without question, the results are disastrous.
In May last year, a World Health Organization study found Delhi to have the world's worst air pollution, based on the amount of floating particular — the superfine, microscopic particles that cause the worst damage to the lungs — in the city’s air. The Indian capital averaged 153 micrograms per cubic meter in 2013, compared with about 90 in Beijing.
As a point of reference, the US National Ambient Air Quality Standard is 12 micrograms per cubic meter.
Complete text: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...0320/air-new-delhi-more-polluted-than-beijing
Near daily stats show that the air in India's capital is far more polluted than in Beijing, where a public outcry prompted the government to shut down factories and restrict the use of cars. And in New Delhi, rickshaw drivers, traffic cops and the underclass that travels by bus and bicycle are the worst affected, according to one new study.
But New Delhi’s problem might not be a lack of strict regulation. Instead, its overly harsh penalties for polluting the air could actually be to blame.
The 1981 air pollution control act — India's answer to America's 1963 Clean Air Act — gives regulators the power to ban dirty fuels, cut off water and electricity to factories and bring criminal charges against violators. But there's no provision allowing them to levy fines. The harsh measures at regulators' disposal are viewed as “nuclear options” and rarely used.
“Clearly, criminal liability is not working,” says Shibani Ghosh, an environmental lawyer at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research, an independent think tank.
“We certainly need to have criminal penalties for more egregious violations of the law. But criminal penalties also come with a higher evidentiary burden, because charges have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Without question, the results are disastrous.
In May last year, a World Health Organization study found Delhi to have the world's worst air pollution, based on the amount of floating particular — the superfine, microscopic particles that cause the worst damage to the lungs — in the city’s air. The Indian capital averaged 153 micrograms per cubic meter in 2013, compared with about 90 in Beijing.
As a point of reference, the US National Ambient Air Quality Standard is 12 micrograms per cubic meter.
Complete text: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...0320/air-new-delhi-more-polluted-than-beijing
