(MENAFN- Live Mint) A dense blanket of haze covered the national capital on Monday, with air quality lingering in the“very poor” category. The worsening crisis mirrors the pollution struggles faced by major cities worldwide, reminiscent of China's 'Beijing 2013 smog emergency', which sparked public outrage and a severe health crisis.Delhi, similarly, faces seasonal chokes from stubble burnin, vehicular exhaust, and dust, contributing to 12,000 premature deaths yearly in the city alone. A study published in The Lancet Planetary Health last year estimated that 3.8 million deaths in India between 2009 and 2019 were linked to air pollution.
Also Read | Delhi: 17,188 deaths linked to air pollution in 2023, says report In the early 2010s, both Delhi and Beijing grappled with“airpocalypse” levels of smog, with PM2.5 concentrations routinely surpassing 500 μg/m3, more than 50 times the World Health Organisation's annual guideline of 10 μg/m3.
As of November 2025, Beijing has largely achieved success through sustained, top-down reforms, while Delhi's efforts have yielded incremental gains amid seasonal hazards. But how?
China's battle against air pollution The Chinese government launched a national campaign, blending top-down enforcement with new policies. Beijing, as the epicentre, became a testing ground for transformative techniques. This report examines how China tackled the issue, drawing from the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) Sustainable Mobility article“Clearing the Skies”, and outlines future challenges.
What methods were implemented by China? Initiatives such as Low Emission Zones (LEZs) play a crucial role in Beijing's strategy to combat air pollution and improve air quality within specific areas. These zones limit the entry of high-emission vehicles, pressing the use of cleaner, more environmentally friendly modes of transport, according to the ICLEI report.
Also Read | Climate Change & You: Is India's deadly pollution saving us from global warming? Additionally, the city has worked to reduce coal consumption by closing polluting industrial facilities and upgrading heating systems.
Also Read | China's air power expansion along LAC revealed in latest satellite images Beijing spearheaded coal reduction, phasing out 3,000 small boilers and capping coal use at 15 million tons by 2017-a 30% cut. Natural gas and renewables filled the gap, with the city adding 4 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity.
Average annual PM2.5 air pollution levels in Beijing, China, between 2013 and 2023. (in micrograms per cubic meter of air). (Source: Statista)Beijing restricted vehicle numbers via license plate lotteries and expanded subway networks to 1,000 kilometres. Beijing has adopted public transportation, cycling, and e-vehicles powered by renewable energy sources, thereby reshaping the city's transportation landscape, according to the report.
Also Read | China's chokehold on rare earths must loosen and India should do what it takes By 2020, electric vehicles accounted for 40% of new sales, supported by subsidies and the development of charging infrastructure. Industries faced shutdowns, with over 2,000 factories closing or relocating, and steel production curtailed during the winter“apocalypse seasons”.
Vehicle monitoring and reforestation Monitoring advanced dramatically as a nationwide network of 1,500 stations provided real-time PM2.5 data, empowering apps like“Blue Sky” for public tracking. Reforestation efforts planted 100 million trees around Beijing, enhancing natural filtration.
Were the results green?From 2013 to 2017, Beijing's PM2.5 levels dived 35%, from 89.5 to 58 micrograms per cubic meter. National averages dropped 25% in the same period.
By 2020, the Three-Year Action Plan had further reduced coal consumption by 150 million tons and increased clean energy to 15% of total consumption. The respiratory cases fell 20%.
Impact on average life expectancy in ChinaThe ICLEI report stated, citing research by EPIC, that these improvements in air quality have contributed to longer life expectancy among residents. In Beijing, the decline in PM2.5 levels is projected to add approximately 4.6 years to local life expectancy.
Elderly people play diabolo or Chinese Yo-yo at a park in Beijing on October 29, 2025. (Photo by Adek BERRY / AFP)On a national scale, average life expectancy has increased by two years since 2013. Between 2013 and 2020, China was responsible for about three-quarters of the total global reduction in air pollution (EPIC, 2022). Conversely, South Asian countries, including Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan, have experienced a concerning rise in particulate pollution since 2000.
How is Delhi fighting against air pollution?Delhi's fight in tackling air pollution is more fragmented, relying on the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) and the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP).
The 2025 Air Pollution Mitigation Plan outlines 25 key points, including the ban on end-of-life vehicles from July, restrictions on entry for BS-VI/CNG/EV commercial vehicles from November, the deployment of 200 road sweepers, the installation of anti-smog guns on high-rises, and the pilot testing of cloud seeding for artificial rai.
New Delhi, Nov 03 (ANI): An anti-smog gun sprays water droplets to reduce the effects of air pollution, as a slight layer of smog is seen over Kartavya Path, in New Delhi on Monday. (ANI Photo)Beijing's success stems from scale and coordination, decoupling growth from emissions via renewables, while Delhi's democratic hurdles and agricultural dependencies hinder depth. Pollution indices rank Delhi at 90.21 vs. Beijing's 77.35, with Delhi's winter PM2.5 hitting 200 μg/m3.
Progress is evident but modest: January–October 2025 saw no“severe” days (AQI >400), a first since 2018, with PM2.5 averaging 72 μg/m3 (down from 83 in 2024).
Biomining cleared 136 lakh tons of legacy waste, eliminating landfill fires. Yet, Diwali 2025 spiked AQI to hazardous levels, underscoring winter vulnerabilities from stubble burning (38% of pollution).
New Delhi's attempt to tackle air pollution through cloud seeding appears to have yielded narrow results. Cloud seeding, which involves dispersing particles such as silver iodide or salt into clouds from aircraft to induce rainfall that can help wash away pollutants, was carried out by the Delhi authorities in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur.
Ministry of Earth Sciences Secretary M Ravichandran called“cloud seeding” purely an experiment and said such experiments tend to have either positive or negative outcomes.
“Everybody is trying different things – universities are trying, some institutes are trying. Only through such experiments and trials will we gain information. That was purely an experiment,” he said, as reported by PTI.
“Experiments can have both types of outcomes -- failure or success -- and it does not mean that we should refrain from conducting them,” he added. The official further said that before going operational or semi-operational as far as cloud seeding is concerned, there is a need to understand more about it.
Experiments can have both types of outcomes -- failure or success -- and it does not mean that we should refrain from conducting them.
Asked if there should be some policy before conducting such experiments, he said that when somebody comes up with new knowledge and technology, even if it fails, it provides knowledge and information for future research work.
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