The national capital’s poor air quality season is here again. As air quality has dipped with the arrival of cooler temperatures, will the metropolis again choke on Diwali night?
Down To Earth put these questions to Gufran Beig, Chair Professor at NIAS (IISc) and Founder Project Director, SAFAR. Excerpts:
Rajat Ghai (RG): How do you see conditions in Delhi post-Diwali this year?
Gufran Beig (GB): As far as meteorological or weather conditions are concerned, this year was very well placed. That is because Diwali is being celebrated at a time when winter has not completely set in. Had it been celebrated in November, conditions would have been far more severe.
Weather conditions in Delhi and North India are still not that favourable for pollutants to get accumulated. The surface winds are relatively faster at the moment.
Secondly, the monsoon has withdrawn much earlier in Delhi. Usually, winds tend to slow down after the withdrawal of the monsoon. That phase has also passed.
Thirdly, due to floods, harvesting has not yet picked up in Punjab. In earlier years, the peak of harvesting used to coincide with the fireworks bursting during Diwali. But this time, fields still have standing water and harvesting has not yet been initiated in a full-fledged manner.
Fourthly, the La Nina weather phenomenon favours good air quality in Delhi and North India. But we were so far experiencing El Nino Southern Oscillation conditions. La Nina has just started setting in. But its effect will be seen in December and January.
Keeping all this in mind, the conditions were congenial for better air quality this year. As you can see, the air quality being recorded now by many stations is mostly ‘Poor’ and has not gone down to ‘Very Poor’ or ‘Severe’.
However, as far as ‘green crackers’ are concerned, even if you burn them, there will still be up to 60 per cent pollution due to smoke.
However, the most important aspect is proper implementation. It is not possible for authorities to go from house to house and check if people are bursting green crackers. If people use and burst traditional conventional crackers instead of green ones, then the air quality tomorrow may go into the upper end of ‘Very Poor’, especially in stations located in residential neihbourhoods. Now too, the stations in Rohini and Pusa are recording worse levels. That indicates that this is a very localised, firecracker-related phenomenon, rather than a weather-related one.
If norms are flaunted significantly, then there is a likelihood that early morning tomorrow may see air quality dip to the lower end of ‘Severe’ although mostly it will remain in the upper end of the ‘Very Poor’ category.
Even if it touches higher levels, it will come back to normal very fast as the sun rises. This is because the temperature is still not very cool, which will not help in the accumulation of pollutants. Surface wind speeds are also not too slow which will help in dispersing pollutants faster.
In that case, by tomorrow afternoon or evening, the air quality will again hover between ‘Poor’ and ‘Very Poor’.
RG: Punjab suffered immensely due to floods this year. Do you think this will be a factor in influencing post-Diwali air conditions in Delhi?
GB: Stubble burning has certainly been postponed by a week or two. The only problem is that usually it used to be over by the end of November. But this time, it is possible that stubble burning may extend till the first or second week of December. If temperatures are lower at the time and surface winds also slow down, then December will see worse air quality than expected.
RG: You said at the beginning of this year that the solution to this lies in the ‘electrification of Delhi’ or the city adopting electric vehicles (EVs) completely. Do you see that happening anytime soon?
GB: We are usually worried about short-term extremes which is fair in a sense since they create problems. But these should not make much of an impact if we go to the root of the problem and address it: fossil fuel emission from the transport sector, diesel gensets or industry. There is also a lot of biofuel emissions from street vendors who use charcoal and wood to cook their dishes. Ten and 15-year-old vehicles are still plying in Delhi as well.
In this scenario, the real solution to improving Delhi’s air quality by 40-45 per cent is the electrification of vehicles.
Of course, that will require large-scale improvements in infrastructure like setting up charging stations next to petrol pumps and reducing charging time. But then, any innovation comes with challenges.
Looking at the current scenario and pace of transformation, it looks a little difficult but then it all depends on political will and the pace of implementation.