Pollution kills 54,000 people in Delhi in 2020: Greenpeace Southeast Asia Report

Pollution kills 54,000 people in Delhi in 2020: Greenpeace Southeast Asia Report

According to a Greenpeace Southeast Asia analysis of cost to the economy due to air pollution, Air pollution claimed approximately 54,000 lives in Delhi in 2020. Six Indian cities which feature in the global analysis are Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Lucknow.

Key points of the report

1. Globally, approximately 1,60,000 deaths have been attributed to PM 2.5 air pollution in the five most populous cities — Delhi, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo.
2. The report is based on a Cost Estimator. It is an online tool that estimates the real-time health impact and economic cost of fine particulate matters (PM 2.5) in major world cities.
3. The tool was deployed in a collaboration between Greenpeace Southeast Asia, IQAir and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).
4. Air pollution claimed approximately 54,000 lives in Delhi in 2020. It resulted in air pollution-related economic losses of 8.1 billion USD (58,895 crores). It amounts to 13% of Delhi’s annual GDP.
5. Greenpeace uses an approach called ‘willingness-to-pay’. In this approach, a lost life year or a year lived with a disability is converted to money by the amount that people are willing to pay in order to avoid this negative outcome.
6. Six Indian cities namely Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Lucknow featured in the report.