India in Need of Air and Water
A chimney is reflected in a puddle polluted with
chemicals at an industrial area of the western
Indian city of Surat
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PhD in Economics, Associate Professor of the World Economy Department, Academic Head of the World Economy Undergraduate Program at HSE- University
India over the several past decades has offered a cautionary example of how a country can sacrifice its natural environment for economic and demographic growth by launching a vicious circle of ecological degradation that is becoming increasingly unbreakable.
India over the several past decades has offered a cautionary example of how a country can sacrifice its natural environment for economic and demographic growth by launching a vicious circle of ecological degradation that is becoming increasingly unbreakable.
In the past few decades, India has become one of the least livable places in the world, placing 155th out of 178 on the environment index produced by the Yale University based on 20 parameters [1]. Air pollution is definitely the most serious problem, with India having one of the world's worst atmospheres, and one that is inadvertently worsening each year. From 2004 to 2013, the country’s growth rate reached 7.5 percent, with the population adding over 140 million, i.e. almost half of the total in Russia [2]. More than half of the increase occurred in cities, which have been ecologically unsustainable and have failed to stem the increased industrial and demographic pressures. A World Health Organization survey of 1,600 large cities in the G20 found that 13 out the 20 most polluted places are located in India, with Delhi in the lead [3].
The quantity and quality of fresh water pose more profound problems [4]. As of 2010, water intake amounted to 34 percent of renewable water reserves, suggesting that an internationally recognized level of water stress, i.e. a shortage of water for human and environmental needs [5]. The 40-percent level will soon be inevitable, which suggests a threshold of the water crisis, when the water deficiency will cause the spread of water quality-related diseases and the irreversible destruction of ecosystems. And many Indian regions have already been hit by this calamity.
The story of water in India
Water is critical for Indian agriculture – the source of sustenance for 68 percent of the population [6]. Water demand in rural areas is rising in proportion to population growth, while the number of accessible sources in many regions is diminishing because of pollution, toughening competition with cities and the depletion of subsurface reservoirs, the latter the most dramatic phenomenon. India grows about 15 percent of its produce thanks to underground sources, and by 2010, the farmers invested 12 billion dollars to drill some 21 million water wells [7]. With the water table falling, a wave of bankruptcies has swept the country, with suicides among farmers totaling 200,000 since 1997 [8].
Water shortages give rise to sanitation problems. But in this area, India appears quite successful. By 2012, the share of households with access to improved fresh water sources reached 95 percent in the urban and 89 percent in rural areas (respectively 87 and 59 percent in the 1990s). Households deprived of improved technical sanitation dropped to nine percent in the cities and to 59 percent in the countryside (respectively 24 and 87 percent in the 1990s) [9]. Access to improved fresh water sources and sanitary facilities is part of the UN Millennium Goals. The goal seems to be the most achievable to a great extent due to the Indian efforts. However, in absolute figures, there are still enormous segments of the Indian population with no access to quality water.
The 40-percent level will soon be inevitable, which suggests a threshold of the water crisis, when the water deficiency will cause the spread of water quality-related diseases and the irreversible destruction of ecosystems.
Air pollution, fresh water shortages, soil erosion, deforestation, urban waste and other problems both affect the quality of life and hold back economic growth. According to the World Bank, ecological difficulties annually rob India of 80 billion dollars, i.e. 5.7 percent of the GNP in 2009 [10]. Moreover, they exacerbate structural economic problems: poverty and extreme inequality since poor households suffer greater ecological damages, the spread of slums in big cities, low farming productivity, etc.
While previously the pitiable state of India's environment was widely regarded as a domestic issue, its currently snowballing cross-border consequences have placed it on the world agenda. Just take the aggravating international water conflicts. India is working hard to rebuild its water supply and power generation systems in its northern regions, planning to construct 292 dams to provide electricity for six percent of its population. In 2012, the region's largest hydropower plant Nimoo Bazgo was built on one of the tributaries of the Indus, which will considerably cut the water supply to the downstream regions of Pakistan and worsen the bilateral relationship down to a possible armed conflict. Bangladesh is equally worried by Indian hydropower projects.
The international community is also anxious about the sharp rise of greenhouse emissions, India being the third largest discharger after China and the United States by almost tripling its CO2 emissions since 1990 [11]. Along with fast economic growth, the key is in the domination of coal in the Indian energy balance, i.e. 55 percent of the total volume of primary energy consumption. As such, the situation is unlikely to improve, as the 12th Economic Plan (2012-2017) envisages an almost 50-percent increase in coal production, plus a rise in imports. Economic growth will also advance, as well as the growth of a middle class prone to Western-style consumption, only accelerating the rising demand for energy that cannot be met without more coal-based energy production. Large-scale government efforts to develop renewable sources and utilize more LNG imports can hardly change the overall picture.
In 10-15 years, India will become the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter.
Carbon footprint by nation. Infographic
In 10-15 years, India will become the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter. Today, the lead belongs to China which is planning to reach the peak before 2030, after which the emissions will. As for India, in 2020-2040 its emissions are expected to rise by 60 percent [12]. If you add the CO2 to other greenhouse gases, the situation in India will be even bleaker because the country boasts the world's largest population of cattle, the main source of methane.
Despite their critical level, ecological problems are not a priority for state policies. So far, the pro-environment measures of the Narendra Modi government seem mostly symbolic. For example, the government has chosen the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi to launch the nationwide program Clean India to engage activists and national celebrities and to be led by the prime minister with the aim of removing garbage from city streets [13].
The Modi government is hardly ecologically friendly, as it has considerably simplified the procedures needed to obtain environmental permissions for implementing investment projects. In the past, forestry legislation was a major barrier to the development of new coal deposits, many of which are located in wooded regions. But now most of these restrictions have been lifted [14].
Environmentalists also feel uneasy about the government's campaign against foreign financing of environmental NGOs and President Modi’s statements about climate change in which he doubts that it is a reality [15], though it was his government that converted the Ministry of Environment and Forests into the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believes that India is extremely vulnerable to climate changes that can cause not only a drop in farming productivity but also more acute water shortages. If the temperatures markedly increase, disastrous effects like the melting of the Himalayan glaciers and changes in the Indian Ocean monsoon pattern appear likely.
The Indian government is hardly underestimating the ecology-generated damage to the national economy, but rather regards the solution of the ecological problems as unfeasible. According to the World Bank, lowering the atmospheric discharge of pollutants by 30 percent would cost India only 0.7 percent of GDP by 2030, while the collateral dividends would considerably exceed the expenses [16]. But in real terms such action is fraught with a slowing in economic growth and painful immediate expenditures that would inevitably hit the poor. As for the dividends, these would come after several decades and would be taken advantage of by other governments.
2. According to the World Development Indicators
3. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-quality/en/
4. Danilov-Danilyan V.I., Losev K.S. Water Consumption: Economic, Social and Political Aspects: http://www.iwp.ru/monograf/ddwater/te/dd16.shtml
5. Danilov-Danilyan V.I., Losev K.S. Water Consumption: Economic, Social and Political Aspects: http://www.iwp.ru/monograf/ddwater/te/dd16.shtml
6. According to the World Development Indicators
7. Brown L. Plan B 4.0. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009.
8. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vandana-shiva/from-seeds-of-suicide-to_b_192419.html
9. http://www.in.undp.org/content/dam/india/docs/MDG%20-%20India%20Report%202014.pdf
10. World Bank. India Diagnostic Assessment of Select Environmental Challenges. An Analysis of Physical and Monetary Losses of Environmental Health and Natural Resources (In Three Volumes). Volume I. June 5, 2013: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2013/07/16/000442464_
20130716091943/Rendered/PDF/700040v10ESW0P0box0374379B00PUBLIC0.pdf11. http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/news_docs/jrc-2014-trends-in-global-co2-emissions-2014-report-93171.pdf
12. http://qz.com/215793/everyone-is-cutting-their-carbon-emissions-except-india/
13. http://swachhbharat.mygov.in/
14. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/world/indian-leader-favoring-growth-sweeps-away-environmental-rules.html?_r=0
15. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/09/narendra-modi-india-prime-minister-climate-change-sceptic
16. http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2012/
09/24/000158349_20120924145047/Rendered/PDF/wps6208.pdf
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