Licence to kill

This story began with an early-morning phone call. "Do you know," the caller said, "Toyota, TELCO and General Motors are ganging up to start a pro-diesel campaign? They plan to take journalists on freebies to see excellent diesel technology across the world." Intrigued, I asked if the caller knew anyone who is behind this. He said, "Try Kuldip Sahdev. He works with Toyota."

If something is underhand, the simplest way to deal with it is to make it open. So I asked the Centre for Science and Environment's Our Right to Clean Air Campaign Team to interview Sahdev, a former Indian Ambassador to Japan. Sahdev came to see us, talked openly, and assured us that there was no such joint effort, though it was true that Toyota is planning to take Indian journalists to Japan to show them its excellent production facilities around the time it launches its vehicles in India later in the year. But in no way is it a pro-diesel campaign, he said. It is just to publicise the work of Toyota. Sahdev sounded convincing.

But in all this a thought came to me: Why are all the major foreign car manufacturers out to sell diesel cars in India and especially in Delhi where we are literally choking on particulate pollution? Don't they know about the dangers diesel emissions pose to public health? Doesn't Toyota know that Japanese scientists have found extremely carcinogenic substances in diesel exhaust? Don't Ford and General Motors know that California is taking strict action against diesel vehicles? Isn't Mercedes-Benz aware of all this?

Indian car companies can possibly make a case that they made investments in diesel technology because they were not fully cognisant of the health threats posed by it. It is a fact that literally no car company has any environmental health specialist on its staff to give it proper advice. But, surely, the foreign car majors know this. Mistakes being made in ignorance is one thing but mistakes being made in full knowledge of facts is totally unforgivable.

So we decided to confront the foreign car companies with a common questionnaire and insisted that we get interviews or written replies from nobody less than the chief executive officers ( ceo s) of these companies. Except for Fiat and General Motors, all others responded. Here is our report....

---Anil Agarwal

Diesel: an urban nightmare
• One person dies prematurely every hour in Delhi due to the extremely high levels of suspended particulate matter ( spm ) in the city's ambient air, according to a study conducted by the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment ( cse ). Moreover, 52,000 people die every year in 36 Indian cities due to high levels of spm .

• The real killers are fine particles -- the smaller the particles the deeper they penetrate into the respiratory tract.

• Diesel engines produce 10-100 times more particles (one to two orders of magnitude) than petrol engines.

• Over 90 per cent of these particles are dangerously fine.

• Delhi uses 2.5 times more diesel than petrol.

• Diesel particles are very carcinogenic. In 1997, a Japanese scientist identified in diesel emissions the most potent carcinogen known as of date.

• There is no technology that can get rid of dangerous particles in diesel exhaust. As the diesel fuel quality gets better and the the engine designs get efficient, the number of pm 2.5s (particles less than 2.5 microns in diameter) rises dramatically.

• The concentrations of particles less than 10 microns in diameter ( pm 10s) reaches six times the recommended levels in Delhi winters. The only way to prevent air quality from deteriorating further is to substantially reduce the use of diesel.

• The Supreme Court ( sc ) of India has already ordered that all diesel buses in Delhi should move to compressed natural gas ( cng ) by March 31, 2001, which will reduce particulate emissions from vehicles by 30-35 per cent. But particulate levels have to drop by 90 per cent if Delhi is to get clean air.

• It was hoped that liberalisation of the car industry would help bring better and cleaner technology to India. But transnational carmakers, who are aware of the severe pollution load in Indian cities, are promoting diesel cars, creating a very obvious and serious threat to public health.

• While the Indian government does next to nothing to control air pollution, people will keep dying in Indian cities due to the car industry's lack of regard for public health. The transnationals' lack of moral responsibility will kill urban Indians.

They operate across international borders. There is no way transnational carmakers do not know that tiny particles from diesel emissions kill

ACCORDING to the World Health Organisation (WHO), SPM is the most serious air pollutant on a worldwide basis. It causes the death of 460,000 people each year. In August 1998, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) declared that particles in diesel emissions are toxic air contaminants. Two months later, California’s environmental regulators voted to eliminate the more lenient pollution standards for dieselpowered vehicles, saying that diesel engines will have to meet the same pollution standards as petrol-powered vehicles 2004 onwards. At present, it seems impossible that diesel engines will meet these standards notwithstanding the rapid development of diesel engine designs in the past decade.

Michael Walsh, editor of Car Lines and former air pollution control specialist at the US Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), points out that the new norms will effectively eliminate light-duty diesel vehicles from California unless there is a significant technological breakthrough. The state accounts for one-tenth of auto sales in the US.

All this has happened at a time when the car industry was moving towards diesel. General Motors (GM) Corporation, one of the largest automobile companies of the world, had been depending on diesel engines to improve fuel efficiency, particularly of their larger sport/utility vehicles. John F Smith, chairperson and chief executive of General Motors, was quoted in the New York Times on November 27, 1998, as saying: “It’s a major concern coming out of the California regulations. It goes to the fundamentals of what is our long-term strategy for dealing with emissions and so forth.”

Global warming vs urban smog

Carmakers defend their move towards dieselisation by arguing that it is one of the answers to the global warming problem. The best diesel engines at present use 33 per cent less fuel per km than petrol engines, claim auto industry engineers. Carmakers claim they are actually responding to environmental concerns as diesel engines emit up to 20 per cent less carbon dioxide (CO2), the main gas responsible for global warming. They add that dieselisation is a global phenomenon, particularly in Europe, which uses much more diesel than the US. But a study by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency shows that while diesel cars use 20-25 per cent less fuel per km, they emit 15 per cent more CO2 per litre than petrol cars. As a result, the overall effect on CO2 emissions is ‘negligible’.

As for urban smog, studies clearly show that even the cleanest diesel engines emit more soot and smog-causing gases than petrol engines. And this is where California’s environmental regulators have caught carmakers on the wrong foot. They have made it clear that reducing emissions of greenhouse gases is not their problem; it is the responsibility of the US EPA in Washington, DC. “Our clear, unmistakable authority to enact regulations is to reduce urban smog,” said Allan S Hirsch, a spokesperson of CARB, according to the New York Times. He added, “Global warming is an international issue and the US EPA ought to be the agency taking the lead.”

Perhaps the most resounding answer to the global warming vs urban smog debate in the US has come from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a non-governmental organisation based in New York that runs the Dump Dirty Diesel Campaign across the US. Even though the organisation works on the issue of global warming, it has not hesitated in campaigning successfully against phasing out of diesel in the bus fleets of New York City and Los Angeles and phasing in of CNG, which emits more greenhouse gases. NRDC gives priority to public health over global warming. Says Richard Kassel, senior attorney and coordinator of the campaign, “We targeted several trucking firms in Southern California, and sued them under that state’s toxic emissions laws. The companies responded by fighting the litigation and by engaging in a media campaign to convince the public that diesel emissions are not a major health threat. Finally, we targeted the major diesel engine manufacturers for producing dirty engines that were designed to cheat on EPA’s emission tests. The result was a year-long investigation by EPA and the justice department and the nation’s largest out-of-court settlement ever in an air pollution case.”

In October 1998, seven US diesel engine manufacturers were fined the largest-ever civil penalty of US $83 million and face US $1 billion in costs for corrective action and future improvements. Government officials say that the companies had violated the law by selling heavy-duty diesel engines equipped with ‘defeat devices’ comprising software that allowed engines to meet standards during laboratory testing, but disabled the engine’s pollution control equipment during highway driving conditions. “That’s what it is — high-tech cheating,” said EPA administrator Carol Browner at a news conference.

Diesel in Europe

Transnational car companies claim that dieselisation is a global phenomenon. In particular, they mention that demand for diesel vehicles is growing at a fast pace in Europe. As for emission norms, even those mandated for 2005 for Europe allow diesel vehicles to emit particles, but there are no standards for particles in petrol, meaning there will be almost no particles in petrol emissions. California, on the other hand, has adopted identical standards for both petrol- and diesel-fuelled engines that will come into effect between 2004 and 2007.

Walsh, who has studied trends in sales and use of diesel vehicles in different countries, observes that these trends reflect the relative importance these countries place upon different pollutants and environmental benefits they hope to achieve. European countries have been much more conscious about controlling global warming than USA. As a result, several Western companies have promoted diesel cars. But governments, concerned by the growing evidence about the health effect of diesel particles, are now beginning to counter this response to global warming by tightening diesel emission standards. Consequently, sales trends of diesel cars vary widely from country to country even within Europe. While Europe uses much more diesel than the US, many European nations are waking up to the problem of tiny particles. Very significant tightening of diesel standards is underway in the US, Europe and Japan to minimise the adverse health effects from vehicles emissions, says Walsh.

Particulates were not considered a serious problem in the European Union until recently, according to Remi Stroebel of the French environmental agency ADEME. France does not even have an ambient air quality standard for particulates and is considering one only now. Moreover, particulate standards were built on PM10s, though now there is growing concern about fine particles. In the March 1999 issue of Car Lines, Walsh cites a UK study which shows that the share of diesel emissions in the SPM load rises dramatically as the size of particles becomes smaller.

While the share is 17 per cent in the case of PM10s, it goes up to 52 per cent in the case of particles smaller than 0.1 micron. The smaller the size of particles, the more dangerous it becomes. European countries that do encourage diesel, such as France, have been experiencing serious air pollution-related problems. A newspaper report mentions the following: “...diesel fuel... accounts for nearly half of all sales at the pump. And carmakers have blocked measures to discourage diesel engine cars, which one newspaper called ‘engines of the devil’.

Unlike in Germany, where environmental groups won strict anti-pollution measures last year, environmentalists here are not particularly powerful. But they have been vocal, staging marches to protest construction of new garages as well as government policies that encourage automobile use.” In 1996, 46.5 per cent of the new cars sold in France were powered by diesel. One reason for this is the presence of Peugeot, the world’s leading manufacturer of diesel engines. But there are calls in France to eliminate the existing sops for diesel cars. According to a Reuters report dated January 30, 1999, the French government said it had recommended changes in the standards used to calculate car taxes, which have traditionally favoured diesel cars. The joint statement from the environment, transport and finance ministries marked the government’s latest move to redress years of policies favouring diesel, says the report, adding that diesel tax was increased proportionately more than petrol tax.

A recent study in the Netherlands tried to evaluate the optimum fuel mix for the country’s road traffic in the year 2010 from an environmental viewpoint. It suggests that the percentage of cars running on diesel should drop by more than half and light commercial vehicles by over a third. It says city buses and coaches, distribution trucks and refuse collection vehicles should move towards CNG and LPG.

Even the Dutch government has taken the cue. The National Environmental Policy Plan 3 submitted in February 1998 said “the government considers that for most vans a shift from diesel to petrol and possibly LPG or natural gas would be desirable in view of the many kilometres driven in towns”. It added that “the government would like to see the large-scale introduction of LPG and/or natural gas for buses. The technology is already available and will have a major impact on urban environmental quality... Diesel-driven passenger cars are economical in fuel terms and score well in terms of national CO2 emissions, but badly in terms of their urban emissions. Diesel should therefore be used mainly by high-kilometrage drivers”.

Even for taxis, “which typically drive high kilometrage in towns, LPG and petrol are preferable to diesel,” the plan says. Other European countries have also been reviewing their diesel policy. Tessa Jowell, British health minister, made it clear that diesel engines are a major source of particles and that they have grave effects on public health, according to a column in the New Scientist written by Tam Dalyell, a member of parliament. A committee set up by UK’s department of health reports that 8,100 people die prematurely each year in urban areas due to the exposure to particles. Moreover, the report estimates that particles cause up to 10,500 hospital admissions for respiratory conditions each year. It suggests that petrol vehicles should be preferred to diesel ones in urban areas.

In Sweden, diesel car sales were very low in the early 1990s. Between 1990 and 1995, average sales were about 3 per cent of total car sales, but increased steadily to about 14 per cent in 1998, which is still much lower than the European average of more than 20 per cent. “It is still fair to say that the Swedish government discourages diesel cars, at least for private owners who have normal driving habits (driving less than 15,000 km per year),” says Peter Ahlvik, expert on air pollution technology at Ecotraffic, a consultancy firm in Sweden. “Now, there is an investigation going on in Sweden about fuel and car tax. And from what I have heard it is very likely that the tax on diesel cars will increase. Thus, diesel car sales will probably drop again,” he adds.

Signals from Down Under…

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has prepared a discussion paper to protest against the health impact of dieselisation. The paper supported by the Australian Medical Association says the boost given to diesel through a 25 per cent cut in price by a new tax reform package will make Australians sick from urban air pollution: “Worse still, the tax reform package may even lead to an increase in the number of premature deaths caused by fine particle air pollution.”

A report prepared by the National Environment Protection Council for national and state governments in 1997 found that fine particulate air pollution accounts for at least 1,000 premature deaths in the country each year. The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering suggested that the government should urgently improve diesel vehicle exhaust standards and preferably curb the growth in the use of diesel by encouraging alternative fuels.

...and from Asia and South America

A Japanese newspaper reported that the Environment Agency “will examine measures to ban diesel vehicles from highly polluted regions, similar to regulations currently enforced in some European countries and Singapore”. The report adds that “the agency had previously examined similar measures when it was working on the NOx-related bill, but pressure from the car industry and government organisations forced the agency to back down”. Japan has already conducted extensive research on the cancer-causing effects of diesel exhaust. In 1997, studies conducted on mice showed that diesel exhaust enhanced asthma-like symptoms in the presence of certain allergens, adding to the list of dangers of diesel overuse.

In Hong Kong, “nearly 90 per cent of air pollution is caused by smoke-belching diesel engines,” says a report published on June 3, 1999, in the South China Morning Post. And it is not just developed countries. According to Michael Walsh, two developing countries — Brazil and Taiwan — have banned private diesel vehicles. Egypt, too, has banned private diesel cars, though diesel is subsidised to support public transport. All this is happening in places where particulate levels are low compared to Delhi.

So the transnational carmakers’ claim that dieselisation is a global phenomenon does not hold water. It is difficult to ignore the enormous body of evidence proving that environmental regulators are discouraging the use of diesel in several parts of the world, most of them with better air quality than Delhi. Yet environmental regulators in India have been turning a Nelson’s eye to the diesel menace. Diesel is less than half the price of petrol in India, and almost all car companies are introducing diesel versions of private cars. While Indian companies can say that they were not aware of the public health effects of diesel vehicles, the transnationals cannot offer the same reason. They are aware of the danger that fine particles from diesel emissions pose to public health. So, by bringing in diesel cars to India, they are deliberately adding to the risk to public health to earn fast profits.

Apart from evading the fact that fine particles in diesel emissions kill, transnational carmakers are competing with each other to promote slow murder in India

DESPITE knowing that SPM levels are extremely high in Delhi and that fine particles from diesel exhaust kill, transnational auto manufacturers in India evade the issue of diesel exhaust completely and spread total disinformation, especially as they know there is nobody in the government to question them. They are aware that as of now, there is no technology in the world that can effectively control the levels of fine particles in diesel emissions. This becomes all the more ominous in the light of WHO’s conclusion that there are no safe limits of SPM. So there is no reason for adding to the existing SPM overload in cities like Delhi by selling more diesel cars, even if they meet the most stringent emission norms.

Moreover, articles and advertisements issued by car manufacturers and their associations have been appearing in the media, deliberately trying to mislead people about diesel cars and the state of pollution in Indian cities, Delhi in particular. To find out what industry leaders feel about the high SPM levels in Delhi, researchers with CSE’s Right to Clean Air Campaign sent a questionnaire to the top brass of transnational companies in India (see box: Needed: Answers). This was to act as an assessment of these corporate giants’ sense of moral responsibility and how they factor in environmental and public health concerns while making their investment decisions.

Almost all chief executive officers (CEOs) or other senior executives responded to the questionnaire. While each company insisted that it was concerned about the environment, not one addressed the question of particulates properly. Every single one of them evaded this issue. The tone of the CEOs’ responses was underlined by two factors: On the one hand, they want to maintain an image of concern towards public health. To this end, they do not hesitate to misinform and disinform. But their real concern is to defend their investments, which they do by saying that diesel is an environment-friendly fuel.

Deaths due to high SPM levels in cities like Delhi hardly figure on the agenda of transnational carmakers. They want profits at any cost, as long as they are not caught breaking any rules. The dieselisation of the Indian private vehicle fleet is propelled by transnationals, who are very careful about what they do back home. If governance in India is weak, it is clear that even these auto giants will take advantage of it.

Sounds of wantonness

When asked why they are introducing diesel models despite being aware of the extremely high SPM levels in Delhi’s air, all the CEOs and senior executives of transnational car companies went on the back foot, giving convoluted and confusing responses. In a telephonic interview with Down To Earth, Till Becker de Freitas, Mercedes-Benz India Ltd’s managing director (MD) and CEO, said: “Our diesel cars pollute by far less than a lot of gasoline cars running on Indian roads.” While this may be true, it is beside the point. He added: “Besides, research world over has shown that diesel cars are more environmentfriendly than gasoline cars.” This is totally untrue (see evidence cited earlier in the story).

Responding to the same question, A Sankara Narayanan, MD, Hindustan Motors, which has launched a diesel version of the Mitsubishi Lancer, said in a telephonic interview: “I would like to tell you that according to the emission norms — Euro II — the suspended particulate matter is very close between diesel and petrol, which is not so in Euro I. And in Euro III, which will come later, it is almost the same. So it is not that particulates are high in diesel, it is how you treat it in the engine.”

For a MD of a major car company, Narayanan has all his facts mixed up. While Euro-I norms for particle emission in Europe were exactly the same for petrol and diesel, subsequent particulate emission standards — Euro-II (1996), Euro-III (2000) or Euro-IV — have no norms for petrol vehicles because they are considered to be very low. But there are standards for particulate emissions for diesel cars because they are way above those for petrol cars. This exposes the limitations of current diesel technology in eliminating the problem of particles in the exhaust. It also shows that the senior executive of Hindustan Motors is either clueless about emission norms or he is deliberately trying to misinform the public on this sensitive matter. Such disinformation may help him earn promotions and make profits for the company but it will certainly contribute to the death count due to high SPM levels in Indian cities.

The response of Ford India Ltd is a little more clever. In a letter faxed to Down To Earth, I Lewis of the company’s product engineering wing, writing on behalf of Phil Spender, president and MD of the company, says particulate matter emissions from diesel engines fitted to the Ford Escort are below the Euro-II standards mandated for Delhi. “In fact, they have always been low since initial launch,” he said. But he added, “It is not true that diesel engines are inferior to petrol in this respect (of PM emissions)” — disinformation once again.

Meeting emission norms may be good enough where air quality is better than what it is in Delhi. But in the particleoverloaded air of Delhi, every additional diesel vehicle takes the residents that much closer to death and disease. But to hope that Ford appreciates this crucial fact is perhaps asking for too much. It is not merely a matter of refusing to acknowledge the danger posed by fine particles in diesel exhaust. The car industry in India is too busy blaming the bad quality of fuel for the high levels of air pollution. “In future, fuel quality will be a more important factor for setting automotive emission standards than technology... The perception that diesel-driven vehicles create more pollution is wrong,” wrote B S Rathor, vice president, external affairs, Ford India Ltd, in an article published in The Indian Express on June 14, 1999. Clearly, this is an effort to deliberately mislead people into believing that diesel is an environment-friendly fuel. “The buyer must be given a choice,” he added. But then the buyer should also be given a choice to purchase very polluting but cheap vehicles. He/she does not have that choice because nobody has the right to kill. Nor do manufacturers.

Hyundai Motors India Ltd has recently announced that it will be coming out with a diesel car in October. When asked in an interview if it was possible for the company to say that it will not go in for diesel cars in view of the particulate emission crisis in India, Yang Soo Kim, the company’s MD, said: “I don’t have deep knowledge about that. That is a very difficult question. We cannot answer that question.” That the dilemma between maintaining a good public image and earning quick profits can confuse the top brass of car companies shows exactly how much concern corporate chiefs have for the environment and public health.

In what can be described as perhaps the most ‘politically correct’ response to the questionnaire, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Ltd’s deputy MD, K K Swamy, and H Tsutsumi, director-engineering division, say: “Toyota is not only aware of ongoing research on environmental issues but is one of the leaders in such research.” Yet when it comes to launching vehicles in the market, they say “a diesel engine vehicle, if emission aspects are taken care of, becomes an obvious choice at this stage”. Making the right kind of noises for the environment and public health does not take away the fact that even a company like Toyota, known the world over as one of the ‘greenest’ carmakers, will not think beyond the profit motive (see box: Toyota: Letting India down).

‘What scientific evidence?’

None of the CEOs could answer why they had not taken the available scientific evidence about diesel particles into consideration while making their investment decisions. “Our cars are sold both in India and California, which has very strict standards. We use the same technology for manufacturing cars for both USA and India,” said the Mercedes-Benz India CEO. What he forgot to mention while making these ‘subtle’ comparisons is that SPM levels in Indian cities are much, much higher than in California and that every additional diesel car increases the number of tiny killers in the air. “Your questions are unfair and almost an insult to us as it’s our very strong point that we are very environment-friendly,” the CEO added. But when Down To Earth sent a copy of the telephonic interview for approval, this statement was deleted.

It is surprising to see how a few observations based on scientific data can ‘insult’ a company that claims to be environment- friendly. However, the CEO did not counter the ‘insulting’ question with any scientific facts. And the fact that the company has to go back on the word of its CEO is by itself very damaging to its reputation.

“The scientific evidence available is well known to Ford,” said the written response by Lewis. And what example of this scientific evidence do they put forth? “It should be noted as an example that diesel produces lower levels of CO than petrol....” Part of the scientific understanding of Ford is to talk about carbon monoxide when we are asking about the danger from diesel particles. A good way to obfuscating the issue for those who do not know.

A choice to kill?

“Diesel engine vehicles are popular even in markets where diesel fuel is more expensive than petrol. Customers appreciate the economy and longevity of the diesel product,” said Ford India. The Hindustan Motors MD said: “I cannot deny that (the company is taking advantage of the fuel pricing policy of the government) because all of us know that diesel is cheaper than petrol in India....” He also stressed that diesel engines are more fuel-efficient than petrol.

That diesel is more fuel-efficient than petrol is true. But does human life have to subsidise this fuel-efficiency? It is quite clear that economic concerns completely override concerns of human health in the business plans of transnationals.

Moreover, they argue that in their diesel models, they are offering a choice to the customer. “We are not taking advantage of the Indian government’s (fuel) pricing policy as all over the world, diesel is less expensive than gasoline. We have equal number of gasoline models too. People are free to choose among them,” said the Mercedes-Benz CEO. But who will help the customer make an informed choice?



J H Kim, Hyundai India’s executive director, marketing and sales, said that the company was introducing a diesel model “because the customer wants (it). We are offering the diesel cars to better serve the customers”. Perhaps serving the customer in the Hyundai dictionary includes giving options that will lead to numerous deaths in Delhi. To say that the companies are giving customers a freedom of choice in a matter of life and death, such as emission of diesel particles, is perhaps the greatest example of social irresponsibility.

Moreover, the fact that an expensive car like Mercedes- Benz runs on diesel, which is less than half the price of petrol in India and meant for pumpsets used in agriculture and transport of essential commodities, makes a mockery of the transnationals’ claims that people have the right to choose. It would be a matter of choice for the customer if diesel was the same price as petrol. Here, the blame rests on the Indian government’s warped fuel pricing policies. So, if the Indian government does not discourage the use of diesel in private cars, transnationals will continue to introduce diesel models that are ludicrously cheaper to run than petrol cars. SPM levels will continue to rise. People will keep dying.

The argument of giving the choice to the customer is also weak because they are not even aware of the deadly effects of tiny particles in diesel emissions. All the transnational carmakers, who claim to care for the environment and public health have done nothing to create public awareness about this danger. No customer is in a position to make an informed choice while selecting a car (see box: Making an informed choice).

Moral responsibility: ‘What? Me? Worry?’

When asked if Mercedes-Benz was morally correct in making an investment that was going to affect public health, the company’s CEO in India replied: “I don’t think we are harming public health otherwise by now our cars would have been forbidden in California.” If this was the case, then US carmakers need not have been bothered at all about the extremely stringent emission norms that CARB has decided to implement 2004 onwards even when PM levels are so low. But that is not the case. There is a clear recognition in the US industry that unless there are significant technological breakthroughs, California’s standards will virtually ban light duty diesel vehicles in 2004.

But after he made the above statement, the CEO said something that was extremely surprising, and — quite predictably — was withdrawn when Down To Earth faxed the script of the telephonic interview to the CEO. With arrogance that made a mockery of the thousands of people who die due to high levels of SPM in urban India, the CEO said over the phone that “it may sound like an exaggeration but our exhaust is cleaner than the surrounding air”. It seems that the only hope for the wheezing populace of urban India is to crouch behind the tailpipe of a Mercedes-Benz car to take respite from Delhi’s murderous air. The statement was also a Freudian slip as the CEO indirectly acknowledged the terrible air quality in Indian cities.

Ford’s reply to the question of moral responsibility was a little more studied but a little more misleading: “Ford will do everything practical to support low emission vehicles. Diesel has the potential to be a very low emission vehicle in future and research is actively in progress on new generations of diesel engines which are similar to or better than petrol equivalents.” If everything was so gung-ho in the diesel world, then why are there clear sounds of panic from the US car industry in response to the 2004 emission norms for California.

However, Narayanan of Hindustan Motors could not even dig up a half-truth to shroud the question of moral responsibility: “I believe that the modern diesel engine is as environment friendly as a petrol engine. If you drive a diesel Mitsubishi Lancer, you would find it no different from any petrol car in terms of emissions.” Perhaps Hindustan Motors should start thinking in terms of a MD who can lie a little more effectively.

“We have emission test results for both diesel and petrol cars. Diesel technology is advancing all over the world,” he added. Then why are there still standards for particulate emissions from diesel vehicles in Europe while there are none for petrol? “Besides, diesel cars form a very minuscule portion of the pollution caused by diesel,” was what Narayanan had to say to retrieve the situation. But it would require a better effort than this. Yes, of course, he is right. But what happens when diesel cars increase in number. Given the particle load in Delhi’s air, present fuel-pricing policies and the fact that the number of cars is growing faster than the number of two-wheelers in Delhi, the number of diesel cars will be enough to promote slow murder.

No ‘can do’

Delhi faces the challenge of decreasing 90 per cent of its particle load if the capital’s air is to become clean. In this scenario, each and every diesel vehicle sold at the showroom makes the air that much heavier with particles. One would expect that it is easier for the private vehicle fleet to move away from diesel while the same will be difficult for public transport. Not really. After the Supreme Court order, Delhi’s buses are going to switch to CNG to help bring down the SPM load. All that effort will be in vain if transnational carmakers keep flooding the market with diesel cars. This amounts to a sabotage of the SC order.

Transnationals’ claims that they would meet the most stringent emission norms also seems doubtful. While their cars may meet the norms at the factory gates, chances are that they would not meet the norms a few months later on the road, given the poor quality of fuel, especially diesel, in India. All companies interviewed say diesel cars comprise a very small fragment of the market and thus the pollution threat is minimal. But dieselisation of the private vehicle fleet is not merely an immediate problem with no long-term consequences.

All over the world, pollution control agencies look several years ahead while deciding on emission norms because improvement of air quality requires long-term planning. But, in India, where the problem of SPM load is most acute, the trend seems to be to look backwards. While the world is increasingly showing signs of moving away from diesel, the Indian market is seeing more and more cars running on diesel that is kept cheap for the requirements of the nation’s food security.

While the Indian government knows very little about the air pollution problem, let alone doing anything to deal with it, transnational carmakers say public health is primarily the concern of the government. So where does this leave the residents of urban India? Dead, probably. Because we do not have a government that will protect the health of the people.

In the absence of appropriate regulations, liberalisation of the Indian auto industry will ruin public health

Air pollution is one of the direct results of economic growth. With the introduction of economic reforms in 1991 in India, there has been a substantial degree of liberalisation in the car industry. Industrial growth in the country seems somewhat expensive when the tremendous costs to public health due to air pollution in urban India are calculated. Between 1975 and 1995, while the Indian economy grew by 2.63 times, industrial pollution grew by 3.47 times and vehicular pollution by a whopping 7.5 times (see 'When Wealth is Not Health', Down To Earth , January 31, 1999).

The automobile industry in India boomed after economic liberalisation in 1991 (see graph: Liberalisation: some projections ). In a 1997 report, the Express Investment Week noted: "The last couple of years have seen a host of collaborations between Indian companies and leading car manufacturers from all over the world. In fact, it has almost become a status symbol for a company to flout its foreign partner." Air pollution has grown along with the car market. In 1991-92, 7,491 people died prematurely due to high levels of spm . By 1995, this figure rose to 10,000. In Indian cities, the transport sector alone accounts for 70 per cent of the air pollution.

Liberalisation and air pollution

"In terms of the car industry, liberalisation policies have two effects," explains Shreekant Gupta, associate professor at the Delhi School of Economics, commenting on the environmental impact of economic reforms. "The first is what is known as the 'scale of economic activity effect'. This implies that rise in pollution is concomitant to economic growth. The second factor is the 'technology effect'. As the market is opened, more competitors come in with better technologies that are less polluting. The technology effect should be able to weigh out the scale effect. In other words, the increase in pollution from a rising number of vehicles is mitigated by the modern technology, which is more fuel-efficient. It is probably true that the very best technology in terms of pollution control is not coming to India."

"Liberalisation should be accompanied by appropriate environmental regulations," Gupta says. He agrees that car manufacturers have been most irresponsible in promoting diesel vehicles in urban areas. "Except in the financial sector, liberalisation policies in India have not been accompanied by necessary regulatory measures," says Bibek Debroy, director of research at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, New Delhi. "In the West, there has been a consumer-driven movement that has checked the industry. But in India, environmental controls are solely dependent on the administration and are not consumer- or market-driven. The fact is that we have not been serious about environmental law. No company is altruistic. Left to themselves, they will not care for public health at all," says Debroy.



Written by Sopan Joshi with inputs from Durga Ray and Chandrachur Ghosh.