Climate Change And Pollution: India Faces A Dual Challenge, Say Experts

(MENAFN- Live Mint) At the Mint Sustainability Summit 2025 held in New Delhi recently, experts said India's worsening air pollution is inseparable from the challenges of climate change, and tackling both will require urgent, science-driven interventions.

A panel discussion on“Climate Change, Atmospheric Pollution and Geo-engineering: The Missing Picture” highlighted how air quality across India is deteriorating, with severe health and economic consequences, while also influencing the country's climate trajectory.

“Out of 30 cities most polluted in the world, 21 cities are in India,” said Suruchi Bhadwal, director, climate change and air quality at Teri.“We are living in cities that are highly polluted, with impacts we may not even realize because we breathe the air in and out.”

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She added that the health effects remain largely unspoken, since people usually end up in hospitals or medical centres, paying the costs themselves. This, she said, is not just an individual or household burden but also a strain on the public exchequer, which must maintain hospitals, manage such problems, and treat infections.“I think it is a big challenge that needs to be addressed,” she said.

Krishna Achuta Rao, professor at Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT Delhi, said poor air quality was not limited to big cities.“We tend to look at air pollution as an urban problem , but if you look at India, certainly, it's a problem that's pretty much across the entire country,” he said. From satellite images, he added,“you can see a murky haze all the way from Pakistan through Bangladesh, reflecting sunlight back into space”.

That reflective effect, while moderating surface heating, also disrupts weather and climate systems. Expanding on the science, Achuta Rao explained how aerosols not only alter temperatures by reflecting or absorbing sunlight but also fundamentally change rainfall patterns.

“These particles mix with clouds, affecting how droplets form and rain is released,” he said. Global evidence, including from India, show aerosols have contributed to a reduction in monsoon rainfall.“This is a double whammy, because rainfall from the monsoon is our lifeline,” he added.

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Turning to sectoral linkages, Bhadwal highlighted that multiple industries and activities feed into the pollution-climate nexus.“From the transport sector to the residential sector, thermal power generation, the construction sector, and even the unsuspended dust along roads, every sector has a certain contribution,” Bhadwal said.

She said that across India, about 25% of pollutant loads, especially particulate matter (PM 2.5) emissions, come from the residential sector. The reason, she explained, is that many households still burn firewood and rely on traditional cooking methods, releasing black carbon and particulate matter into the air.

The panel then addressed the prospect of solar geoengineering, a technology that involved injecting aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight. Achuta Rao said,“Essentially, you're injecting aerosols to reflect sunlight, but into the stratosphere, not the part of the atmosphere where we live. It stays there longer, and the idea is to periodically inject sulfuric acid to reflect sunlight.”

He explained that gravity will eventually pull the acid back down, which means more and more injections are needed to keep the reflective effect. This, he said, is only an attempt to balance the warming caused by greenhouse gases. In his view, the approach is not a real solution but an admission that reducing emissions is being abandoned, making it a moral hazard.

Achuta Rao said the effects of geoengineering are not fully understood. It is known, however, that aerosols reduce rainfall, whether in the lower atmosphere or the stratosphere, and that consequence is unavoidable.

“Yes, you may say temperature rise has been contained, but at what cost?” he asked.“Rainfall will be reduced, oceans and water bodies will become more acidic with rising CO2, and geoengineering will do nothing about that.”

Concluding the session, Bhadwal said mitigation remained the only sustainable pathway, pointing to existing initiatives such as the National Clean Air Plan, stricter fuel and transport norms, and electrification efforts.

But she said deeper behavioural change such as reducing firewood dependence through schemes like Ujjwala was also essential.

“There are many measures that can be introduced and implemented, but for any measure taken forward by the government, it takes time to see the impact. We would have to wait at least five to 10 years to know the impact, and the same applies to EV penetration," Bhadwal said.

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