Foul air mirrors policies in world’s most polluted cities
Graft, growth pollute Beijing, New Delhi
A WORLD Health Organisation report has named India’s capital, New Delhi, the most polluted city in Asia — but Beijing should not rejoice at being second, says a leading Chinese daily.
The fact that Delhi held the “most polluted city” tag did not make Beijing a fraction more attractive to international talent, or prevent the massive slide in tourism that had hit the city over the past two years after its grim grey skies made headlines worldwide, an article in the Global Times said this week.
“It’s too soon for Beijingers to start celebrating ‘We’re No 2!’. For starters, the figures that put Beijing second seem a tad unreliable,” said the article.
“Go by the readings of independent monitors and Beijing easily equals Delhi, with Clean Air Asia putting the daily [air quality index] average at 121,” it said.
Even if the figures were accurate, they did not reduce the scale of Beijing’s problem, said the article.
Headlined “New Delhi and Beijing share smog woes”, it said Delhi and Beijing shared the same basic problem: both face a conflict between the desires of the men at the top.
And both cities are also struggling with the dilemmas of urbanisation as the population swells far beyond the limits of sustainable cities.
It said neither city could cope with its pollution as an individual unit.
It needed national efforts to impose tighter limits on industry, force officials to reprioritise, make second-tier cities more attractive and drain off the urban boil of the metropolises.
If authorities of the two countries failed to plan better and stop the corrupt practices of allowing environmentally unsustainable industries, the problem would be worsened, it said. — Indo-Asian News Service