It Is High Time Clean Air Became A Real Fundamental Right

A report released on October 28 in partnership with the World Health Organisation (WHO) once again draws attention to the global burden of disease brought upon humankind by air pollution. The report was anchored by the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet and prepared by 128 experts and 71 academic institutions.

Let’s begin with the findings of the report. In India, the report says, over 1.7 million deaths occurred due to air pollution in 2022. The fatalities were caused by the most dangerous kind of pollutant—suspended particulate matter 2.5 microns in diameter or less (PM2.5). This was an increase of 38 per cent since 2010. Fossil fuels contributed 43.7 per cent, followed by coal (22.93 per cent), mainly used in thermal power plants, and road transportation (15.65 per cent). The economic cost of premature deaths was estimated at $339.4 billion, which is 9.5 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.

The report also noted a global rise in extreme heat events, with heat-related deaths surging by 23 per cent since the 1990s. India was also affected by heat waves, with every Indian experiencing, on average, 20 super-hot days in 2024. A third of extreme heat days were a result of climate change.

The UN, too, sounded a warning about climate change and global warming. In a recent report ahead of the next Conference of Parties (COP-30), the annual climate-change summit, to be held in Brazil from November 10 to 21, it has warned that the international community is not on track to contain global warming by 1.5°C. Assessing the latest pledges made by 64 countries, communicated to the UN between January 1, 2024, and September 30, 2025, the report says these countries can reduce emissions by 11 per cent till 2030 and 35 per cent by 2035. Some of the biggest emitters have not submitted any targets yet. Among them are China, the world’s largest emitter now, the European Union (EU), and India.

China and the EU have announced their targets, without making any formal submission. If their announced emission cuts are factored in, the global reduction figure would go down to 10 per cent by 2035 over 2019 levels. This is nowhere near enough. The international community needs to cut emissions by 43 per cent till 2030, 60 per cent till 2035, 69 per cent by 2040, and 84 per cent by 2050. The scientific consensus is clear—an increase of more than 1.5°C would be catastrophic.

Global warming has many predicted outcomes, some of which we are already witnessing. The rise of ocean levels will drown island nations, or islands generally, and swamp coastal areas. It will cause desertification, with extreme heat making large swathes of the planet uninhabitable. Weather patterns will change, especially the monsoons, and rainfall generally, while extreme weather events will multiply. Agriculture will be severely hit, causing immitigable food shortages, exacerbated by unequal food access between and within nations. We are already there.

But the immediate health crisis is most urgent. It is being caused by many factors, but, as we have seen, air pollution is one of the biggest contributors. Where do we go from here? From the legal point of view, we should make the right to clean air a fundamental and justiciable right. As things stand, 155 countries have signed up to the UN’s Universal Right to a Healthy Environment, which includes the right to clean air. India has enacted the Air Act, 1981. That hasn’t worked, obviously. There is no mechanism to enforce citizens’ right to clean air as part of their right to good health, which could be seen as stemming from the right to life, which undergirds all fundamental rights.

It could be said that India, like Argentina, Finland, Indonesia and Portugal, has a constitutional provision making the right to clean air a fundamental right—under Article 21, which guarantees the right to ‘enjoy a good and healthy environment’. But that is academic. What is needed is enforcement via a clear statutory framework and permanent infrastructure.

It’s not as if popular demand has not resulted in good outcomes. Across the country, judicial enforcement has resulted in a dip in the use of firecrackers, though the situation is fluctuating. The sniff test suggests that pollution via the unrestrained use of firecrackers increased in several cities—Delhi and Kolkata, for instance.

Possibly, the biggest win came in 1998, when the Supreme Court ordered the switch to CNG for Delhi’s public transport fleet. It was implemented beginning 2001 and many cities followed, switching from highly polluting diesel to clean fuel like CNG and LPG. There was an almost immediate and observable improvement in air quality. But the gains were lost as the city’s fleet of vehicles continued to increase at an unsustainable rate. What could have worked was a simultaneous policy to discourage the use of private vehicles. For that disincentives, say fiscal, and incentives, like a huge improvement in the public transport system, should have been put in place.

The problem is that we are always playing catch-up in the absence of a long-term and holistic policy broken down to localities. Thus, the huge success of metro rail services in metropolitan cities has failed to contain either congestion or pollution. And transport is just one of the problems.

The shift to electric vehicles (EVs) demonstrates the need for holism and decentralisation. EVs can surely depollute cities, but, overall, what do they achieve? In 2024-25, almost 75 per cent of electricity was produced from fossil fuels. In other words, while cities became cleaner, other places continue to be polluted.

Given the human (and economic) costs of pollution, mitigation must proceed on mission mode.

Suhit K Sen is a historian, author and freelance journalist.

Published on: Thursday, November 06, 2025, 09:11 AM IST