India puts new restrictions on air pollution levels ahead of Copenhagen climate change conference

The Indian government has newly notified National Ambient Air Quality Standards-2009 through its union ministry of environment and forests. The government’s announcement has come just ahead of the UN climate change conference to be held at Copenhagen. It remains to be seen if the words on paper will translate into real action on the ground.
The ministry, in its notification, almost halved the acceptable limits for polluting gases like sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide. The most important change that has been proposed is that residential and industrial areas will have the same limits.
“After a long gap of 15 years we have notified the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. It brings the air quality standards to European levels and in many cases it even exceeds the standards in the USA. Consequences of these standards will be on clean fuel and this will have major implications on Green House gas emission as well,” said Mr Jairam Ramesh, Indian union environment and forests minister.

New pollutants have been added to the watchlist like benzene – a by product of burning petrol. And the National Environment Protection Authority (NEPA) is being given more powers to crackdown on polluters.

The new norms have come after a gap of 15 years during which pollution levels have shot up. The announcement of the newly notified Revised National Ambient Air Quality Standards-2009 came just less than a month before the crucial UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen where developing countries including India are expected to be pressed hard to fix carbon emission reduction targets.

Two thirds of Indian cities being monitored for suspended fine particulate matter exceed the maximum permissible limits. In cities like Delhi while the switch to compressed natural gas in public buses has resulted in a fall in carbon monoxide levels, sulphur and nitrogen dioxide levels have gone up largely due to the 30 per cent jump in registration of private diesel vehicles. Cities like Chennai are yet to make the switch to CNG.
New pollutants like ozone and nickel have been added to the list of pollutants for the first time, based on guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) and in keeping with the limits followed by the European Union.

The revised guidelines have added five more hazardous chemicals in the list of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for monitoring. They are Ozone, Arsenic, Nickel, Benzene and Benzo(a)Pyrene (BaP).

But don’t expect any improvement overnight because the environment ministry’s new rules have to be backed by enforcement and new laws for which other departments and governments are responsible.

Nevertheless a start has been made. There will be cleaner diesel vehicle engines in all cities from next April. The national capital Delhi not only has the highest number of cars out together compared to all other metros but is also witnessing a massive construction boom which is giving rise to fine dust particles and so for the first time, fine dust suspended particle matter will be measured as well.

“We are concerned about air quality, especially as there are so many vehicles which enter Delhi and we don’t have any control,” said Shiela Dikshit, Chief Minister, Delhi.

But despite lacking enough teeth right now environmentalists are happy. The new rules make it easier for citizens to demand accountability.

“Citizens can now try and demand better air quality from their governments and municipalities, they can go to court,” said Sunita Narain, Director, CSE.

Enforcing will be crucial in cleaning up; the government hopes Parliament will help with new laws. (with inputs from Indian news agencies)