New estimates of the global burden of disease (GBD) released today by the US-based Health Effect Institute (HEI) paint a grim picture for India. Globally, air pollution is estimated to cause more than 4.2 million early deaths — of these, 1.1 million deaths occur in India alone.

This is more than a quarter of the global deaths. India now nearly equals China which scores the highest number of early deaths due to PM2.5. Worse, India now tops the dubious list of highest number of early deaths due to ozone pollution.

The rate of increase in early deaths in India is quite scary. While early deaths related to PM2.5 in China have increased by 17.22 per cent since 1990, in India these have increased by 48 per cent. Similarly, while early deaths due to ozone in China have stabilised since 1990, in India these have jumped by 148 per cent. This demands urgent intervention.

Air pollution is the leading environmental cause of death worldwide; as many as 92 per cent of the world’s population lives in areas with unhealthy air. The 2017 report presents a deeper analysis than the earlier GBD report (2015) and examines the long term trends from 1990 through 2015.

The HEI has built on the GBD project of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), involving more than 2,000 researchers. These researchers enumerate and track death and disability and the influence of behavioral, dietary, and environmental risk factors for more than 300 diseases and injuries, by age and sex, from 1990 to the present, in 195 different countries and territories.

“India cannot afford to remain complacent or on denial any more. With so many people dying early and falling ill and losing productive years due to particulate and ozone pollution, it is a state of health emergency. This demands nation-wide intervention to ensure stringent mitigation and a roadmap to meet clean air standards,” says Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director-research and advocacy, CSE.