Household contributions to and impacts from air pollution in India

Narasimha D. Rao, Gregor Kiesewetter, Jihoon Min, Shonali Pachauri and Fabian Wagner ()
Additional contact information
Narasimha D. Rao: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Gregor Kiesewetter: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Jihoon Min: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Shonali Pachauri: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Fabian Wagner: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

Nature Sustainability, 2021, vol. 4, issue 10, 859-867

Abstract: Abstract Airborne fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is the largest environmental risk factor for premature mortality worldwide, and the probable cause of several hundred thousand premature deaths every year in India. Indian households contribute to ambient PM2.5 directly from several sources, including biomass-burning cook stoves and transport, and indirectly through the manufacturing of products triggered by their purchases. Here, we quantify consumption-based PM2.5 contributions from, as well as the mortality burden suffered by, urban and rural households by income deciles. Indirect PM2.5 emissions contribute almost twice as much to ambient PM2.5 concentrations as direct emissions from biomass cook stoves. We find that the impacts are distributed differently from contributions. We show that the mortality risk from indirect sources falls disproportionately on lower-income households. This suggests that industry‐wide pollution controls can reduce inequity in the impacts of ambient air pollution. However, as low-income households face an order of magnitude higher mortality risks from indoor air pollution, clean cooking fuels remain the most effective way to reduce the number of premature deaths from air pollution in India.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00744-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natsus:v:4:y:2021:i:10:d:10.1038_s41893-021-00744-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/natsustain/

DOI: 10.1038/s41893-021-00744-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Sustainability is currently edited by Monica Contestabile

More articles in Nature Sustainability from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().