India’s government has formed a steering committee of chief secretaries from 20 states, including Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh to effectively implement the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). The chief of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the head of TERI and an IIT professor will also be part of the panel. The panel will approve the budget and state action plans submitted by the states for the NCAP.
China provinces facing spillover air pollution from big cities
A new study published in Science Advances suggests China’s emission norms in big cities are causing air pollution in its provinces. The evaluation of the norms to control PM2.5 emissions, CO2 emissions and water consumption in the cities of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei revealed spillover effects to other regions. Polluting industries are being pushed to neighbouring areas that have lower environmental standards, the study says.
43% Americans breathing dirty air as planet warms: American Lung Association
According to the latest American Lung association study, 43% of Americans now live in polluted spaces and are breathing unsafe air. With global warming, the air quality is increasingly deteriorating in the US. As temperatures rise, wildfires are getting worse building up more smog, or ground-level ozone, across the western US on warmer days, the study says. Over the three hottest years on record (2015, 2016, 2017), about 141 million people lived in US counties that saw unhealthy levels of particle pollution…7 million more people than in the group’s last report”.
No diesel Maruti cars from 2020
Maruti Suzuki has announced it will stop selling diesel cars from April 2020, the time when new emission norms of upgrading fuel standards from Bharat IV to Bharat VI, kick in. Diesel cars contributed to 23% of Maruti’s total sales of 1.75 million vehicles in FY19. The decision to phase out diesel cars have sent suppliers of auto-parts scrambling for other options from Maruti.
Cruise ships pollute as much as a million cars every day
An undercover investigation targeting Britain’s P&O Cruises has found that cruise ships can emit as many ultra-fine particles every day as by a million cars put together. This is because the ships run on the inexpensive but sulphur-laden heavy fuel oil, which makes the air close to their exhausts record concentrations as high as 2,26,000 ultra-fine particles/cubic meter. In comparison, Piccadilly Circus in London – a popular tourist spot – records an average concentration of 38,400 ultra-fine particles/cubic meter.
After protests, India’s green ministry issues notice to polluting Delhi waste plant
The people’s will prevailed this week in India after the Union ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) issued a show-cause notice to a waste-to-energy plant in Okhla, a suburban colony in the national capital. The move comes after local residents protested against the plant in a rally last month, saying toxic emissions from the plant were polluting the area around it.
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