New Delhi, Dec 4 (UNI) World Health Organisation Health, Environment and Climate Change Director Dr Maria Neira on Friday urged the Centre to take the threat of toxic air seriously, saying the country's grim pollution situation needs urgent attention similar to COVID-19.

"One Dollar invested in renewable energy regenerates four times more jobs than one dollar invested in fossil fuels; and the argument that sustainable, green growth and environmentally friendly policies come at the cost of economic growth is “completely losing power," Dr Neira said while introducing “Breathing Here is Injurious to Your Health: The Human Cost of Air Pollution and How You Can Be the Change,” written by financial journalist and clean air evangelist Jyoti Pande Lavakare at a virtual global event organised by United News of India (UNI) along with the Foreign Correspondents Club of South Asia.

Dr Neira said books as the one by Lavakare on pollution that advocate for clean air by spreading awareness from a deeply personal narrative backed by science and evidence, are the most powerful.

The senior WHO Official also pointed out that governments need to act with more urgency and ambition in tracking air pollution which kills almost 7 million people globally annually. “This book will contribute enormously to our cause globally,” she added, noting she liked how the book ended, with learnings and solutions and the desire to “fight” for clean air.

"Economic arguments now are as powerful and strong as the scientific ones,” that link air pollution to health harm and advocate for clean air and a green recovery, she said, noting that there are 70,000 scientific papers that link air pollution to health harm. “If we don’t see those arguments now during COVID-19 then I don’t know when we will choose green recovery,” she said, adding this is the opportunity to reset and recover in a healthy green way and is also economically very sensible.

The Author -- Ms Lavakare -- said she wrote the book after her mother passed away, struggling to breathe in her last weeks. “I had been researching this topic since 2014-15 and had learnt a lot, but my mother’s diagnosis taught me the difference between knowing all this in your head and in your heart. I wrote this book so that others like me, who aren’t experts, could learn faster than I did that air pollution is right here, in our backyards, in our lungs, in the lungs of those we love. I wanted to connect the dots between air pollution and disability, disease and death more strongly so that people realise this is a pandemic in slow motion, adding to the current Covid pandemic. What the mind does not know, the eyes cannot see,” she said. “I wrote it to make meaning out of my mother’s death.”

She noted that the top four learnings she has shared in the book are that pollution is not just a north India problem. “In fact, the most recent research done by IIT-Delhi shows that pollution is growing at a much faster rate in west and south India. Goa leads the way.” Pollution is an all-India, rural as well as urban problem. Secondly, Air pollution is not a seasonal problem - it is a year-round problem - even the least polluted summer months have higher PM2.5 levels than those recommended by the WHO. You can check the data for yourself. Thirdly, lethal PM2.5 particulate pollution doesn’t just affect the lungs or respiratory system, it affects every organ in the human body. There are 70,000 research papers that link air pollution to health harm. Its effects are cumulative and irreversible.

"And lastly, I have learnt air pollution is a social iniquity. It affects all of us, but the rich are able to protect ourselves better than the poor through air filters and high-end masks. And there is enough research to show that the rich generate more pollution - profits are booked privately, but the harm is felt collectively and disproportionately," Lavakare said.

But there are solutions to this “pandemic in slow motion,” she said. They just need to be implemented with greater urgency and ambition.

Quoting a Lancet report just released, Chetan Bhattacharji, managing editor of NDTV, who was also part of the panel, said India has suffered 100,000 deaths due to coal combustion. "We aren’t doing enough. There seems to be a policy paralysis or freeze like in the case of farm fires", he averred.

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