Many of us expressed delight on social media on hearing birdsongs and seeing images of wildlife visiting the streets due to COVID-19 outbreak. Another highlight is Delhi’s air quality index (AQI) that dropped to an average of 60 from 450 from the onset of lockdown. The Yamuna, too, stopped emitting toxic fumes. Now with the economy reopening, Delhi residents are dreading that air and water pollution levels will return to its pre- COVID times.
However, being mindful of our activities can keep the carbon footprint in check. “Without stopping the economic activity, one can find ways to control air pollution”, Sumit Sharma, Director, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), offers hope. He advocates the use of electric vehicles to curb vehicular pollution. “We should reduce travel, and encourage work from home. If that’s not feasible, the government and the public should come together to advocate the use of electric vehicles, and move buses to the electric model. Older vehicles should be replaced with electric ones, with a fair vehicle exchange policy.” Echoing Sharma’s views is Suruchi Bhadwal, Senior Fellow, Earth Science and Climate Change, TERI. “The lockdown has also taught us that the office doesn’t need to call people in, unless we follow the old model of seeing each others’ face to be satisfied that people are working.
When technology has provided the opportunities to work from wherever we are, we should learn this aspect if we seriously think about environment.” Environmental activist and entrepreneur Jai Dhar Gupta stresses that we need to cut our dependency on fossil fuels, whether it is burning wood, coal or oil. “We also need to provide LPGs to all the poor and marginalised sections of our society and think about strategies to eliminate agri-waste burning.” According to Saurabh Bhardwaj, Fellow and Area Convener, Centre for Climate Modelling, TERI, global warming has caused extremal weather patterns in several regions across the world.
“Delhi became prone to global warming because it has an extreme climatic condition. Hence we observe an extended cold and heat wave, even monsoons are variable. Be prepared for further risks because here urbanisation is unregulated and civic amenities are stressed to a hilt.” Earthquakes, says Bhardwaj, despite striking Delhi recently for about 10 times now, is not a climate change risk but a compounding risk and we need to be prepared. “There is no robust mechanism to predict it, but there are probabilities as a major earthquake hasn’t hit the city for a long time now.”