ASSESSMENTS

The Price of India's Economic Development

Nov 21, 2017 | 18:45 GMT

An Indian girl walks with her face covered amid heavy smog in New Delhi on Nov. 13. Today four of the top 10 cities on the World Health Organization's most polluted urban areas list are located in India.

(DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP/Getty Images)

Highlights

Air quality has been getting worse in the Indian capital of New Delhi for years, a trend that will doubtless continue in the short term.
The many factors and stakeholders contributing to the smog rising across the country will complicate any effort to abate it.
Despite its ambitious targets for climate change, India's environmental agency doesn't have enough heft to bring about substantial shifts in policy in the near future.

Smog season has begun across South Asia. Over the past few weeks, a thick layer of microscopic particles from car exhausts, coal stacks, burning fields and garbage settled over much of northern India; another hovered above Lahore, Pakistan. In recent years the phenomenon has become as routine a feature of the seasonal cycle as the cold-weather conditions that exacerbate it. And though rain has dispelled the latest spike in pollution, more sharp increases are sure to follow before the winter ends....

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