外刊精读 48 呼吸困难 印度空气污染太恐怖
India and Pakistan are choking on each other’s pollution
印度和巴基斯坦正因彼此的污染而窒息
Fixing the problem will require countries that hate each other to co-operate
解决这个问题需要这两个互相憎恨的国家合作
[Paragraph 1]Indians are accustomed to seeing their streets getting a lick of paint or the odd pothole being filled before a senior politician or foreign dignitaries come to town. But to prepare for a visit from Narendra Modi, the prime minister, on February 10th, officials in Mumbai deployed a new tactic. They sprinkled its roads with water.
印度人习惯于在高层领导或外国政要来到镇上视察时，将街道粉刷一新，或者把奇怪的坑洞填满。但是为了迎接总理纳伦德拉·莫迪2月10日的访问，孟买的官员们部署了一个新策略。他们把水洒在路上。
[Paragraph 2]They hoped to damp down the street and construction dust that contributes to the city’s pervasive smog. For much of this winter, the skyscraper-filled skyline of India’s commercial capital has been almost invisible behind a grey haze of particulate matter. On some days the Arabian Sea city’s air has been worse than that in Delhi, India’s more famously polluted capital. Between November and the end of January, Mumbai recorded 36 days with “poor” air quality, a level at which even otherwise healthy people can have difficulty breathing. This represents a grim extension of what was already one of the world’s worst environmental problems.
希望能减少街道和建筑灰尘，这些灰尘导致了城市随处可见的雾霾。在今年冬天的大部分时间里，这座印度商业首都摩天大楼林立的天际线几乎被一层灰色的颗粒物雾霾所掩盖。有几天，这座阿拉伯海城市的空气质量甚至比印度污染更为严重的首都德里还要糟糕。从11月到1月底，孟买有36天空气质量为“差”，即使是健康的人也会呼吸困难。这代表着已经是世界上最严重环境问题的严峻延伸。
[Paragraph 3]Delhi and nearby cities on the thickly-populated Indo-Gangetic Plain, which extends from Pakistan to Bangladesh, have long had the world’s filthiest air. Yet as industrialisation and infrastructure-building accelerate across the region, due in part to a post-pandemic growth spurt, the smog is spreading. According to a new analysis by the World Bank, nine of the world’s ten cities worst afflicted by air pollution are in South Asia. And, on February 12th, at the height of the winter smog season, only two of the ten most polluted places in India were in and around Delhi. The remainder, including Mumbai, were in western India.
从巴基斯坦到孟加拉国，人口稠密的中央平原上的德里和附近城市，长期以来一直是世界上空气污染最严重的城市。然而，随着该地区工业化和基础设施建设的加速，部分原因是疫情后的经济快速复苏，雾霾正在蔓延。根据世界银行一项新的分析，世界上受空气污染影响最严重的十个城市中有九个在南亚。此外，2月12日，在冬季雾霾季节最严重的时候，印度十个污染最严重的地方中只有两个在德里及其周边地区。其余的，包括孟买，都在印度西部。
[Paragraph 4]Earlier in the season the Pakistani cities of Karachi, also on the Arabian Sea, and Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, both briefly topped a global index of cities with the worst air quality. In Kathmandu, on the northern edge of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the peaks of the snowy Himalayas that fringe Nepal’s capital have for weeks often been hidden by yellow-brown haze.
在这个季节的早些时候，巴基斯坦城市卡拉奇(同样位于阿拉伯海沿岸)和白沙瓦(靠近阿富汗边境)的空气质量一度位居全球空气质量最差城市指数的榜首。在印度-恒河平原北部边缘的加德满都，尼泊尔首都周围白雪皑皑的喜马拉雅山的山峰几周来经常被黄褐色的薄雾所掩盖。
[Paragraph 5]South Asia’s filthy air takes a terrible toll on the health and economic prospects of millions. High levels of fine particulate matter, known as pm2.5, burrow deep into lungs and enter the bloodstream, increasing the risk of heart and lung disease as well as strokes. Air pollution is estimated to kill over 2m people in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan each year. Globally, it reduces average life expectancy by 2.9 years. The corresponding figure for India is five years. On the Indo-Gangetic Plain, according to a recent study, the average Indian life is up to seven years shorter due to air pollution than it would otherwise be.
南亚污浊的空气对数百万人的健康和经济前景造成了可怕的损害。pm2.5的细颗粒物深入肺部并进入血液，增加了心脏病和肺病以及中风的风险。据估计，在孟加拉国、印度、尼泊尔和巴基斯坦，空气污染每年导致超过200万人死亡。从全球来看，它使平均预期寿命减少了2.9年。印度的数字是五年。根据最近的一项研究，在印度恒河平原上，由于空气污染，印度人的平均寿命比其他情况下短了7年。
[Paragraph 6]A study recently published in the Lancet, a medical journal, estimated that in 2019 India’s economy lost $37bn, or 1.4% of gdp, to pollution-related death and illness. Another study by the Clean Air Fund, an ngo, and the Confederation of Indian Industry, a trade body, calculated that India lost 1.3bn working days that year due to employees staying at home because they or their family members had pollution-linked illness. Pakistan’s province of Punjab, which accounts for 60% of the country’s output, has seen serious smog-related disruptions this winter; school holidays were extended, flights delayed or diverted and motorways closed overnight.
医学杂志《柳叶刀》最近发表的一项研究估计，2019年，印度经济因污染相关的死亡和疾病损失了370亿美元，占gdp的1.4%。非政府组织清洁空气基金和贸易机构印度工业联合会的另一项研究计算出，由于员工或其家人患有与污染有关的疾病而居家，当年印度损失了13亿个工作日。占巴基斯坦全国产量60%的旁遮普省，今年冬天经历了严重的雾霾危害；学校假期延长，航班延误或改道，高速公路通宵关闭。
[Paragraph 7]Predictably, the poor see the worst of this. The Indo-Gangetic states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are among the poorest parts of South Asia—over 115m of their inhabitants live on less than $2 a day—and also the most polluted. Poor people are likelier to use dirty fuels, contributing to high levels of indoor pollution. Meanwhile, “the rich are trying to create a bubble for themselves with air purifiers,” says Karthik Ganesan of the Council on Energy Environment and Water, a think-tank in Delhi.
可以预见的是，贫穷国家看到了最糟糕的情况。印度恒河北方邦和比哈尔邦是南亚最贫穷的地区之一，有超过1.15亿居民每天的生活费不足2美元，也是污染最严重的地区。穷人更有可能使用肮脏的燃料，这导致室内污染严重。与此同时，“富人正试图用空气净化器为自己制造泡沫，”德里智囊团能源、环境和水委员会的卡西克•甘尼桑说。
[Paragraph 8]Air pollution, which nonetheless affects rich and poor, however unevenly, is an urgent political concern across the region. Yet its governments’ mitigation efforts have mostly been ineffective. India launched its National Clean Air Programme in 2019 with the aim of improving air quality in 102 cities (later increased to 131). Four years on, only 38 are on track to hit their targets. Pollution in many of the rest, including Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Nagpur, has grown worse. Pakistan, beset by perma-crises, is vacillating over whether to launch a national clean air programme. Bangladesh drafted a clean air act in 2019 but has not passed it. Across South Asia, there has been “very little improvement [in air quality] despite policies in place to improve it,” says Hans Timmer of the World Bank.
然而，空气污染对富人和穷人的影响，无论多么不均衡，都是该地区一个紧迫的政治问题。可是政府的缓解努力大多是无效的。印度于2019年启动了国家清洁空气计划，旨在改善102个城市（后来增加到131个）的空气质量。四年过去了，只有38个城市有望实现目标。包括班加罗尔、钦奈、孟买和那格浦尔在内的其他许多地方的污染已经恶化。巴基斯坦受到长期环境危机的困扰，在是否启动国家清洁空气计划的问题上犹豫不决。孟加拉国在2019年起草了一项清洁空气法案，但尚未通过。世界银行的汉斯·蒂莫尔说，在整个南亚，“尽管采取了改善空气质量的政策，但空气质量几乎没有改善”。
[Paragraph 9]There are many explanations for this failure, including the difficulty of regulating industry in a region where government is weak and corruption rife. Yet the biggest reason, the Bank suggests, is that policymakers are mostly trying to abate pollution within the cities concerned, and much of it originates elsewhere.
这一失败有许多解释，包括一个政府的软弱、腐败盛行的地区监管工业的困难。然而，世行认为，最大的原因是政策制定者大多试图减少城市的污染，而大部分污染来自其他地方。
[Paragraph 10]Take the smoke that arises in India’s state of Punjab every autumn when its million-odd farmers set fire to their stubble fields. It drifts eastwards, enveloping Delhi and other cities of the northern plain. Or the fug of pollution arising from the brick kilns that ring Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital. “In most cases less than 50% of the pollution is coming from the cities themselves,” says Mr Timmer. In three South Asian capitals, Colombo, Dhaka and Kathmandu, less than a third of air pollution comes from within the city. Around 30% of Indian Punjab’s pollution originates in Pakistan, while 30% of pollution in Bangladesh’s major cities has blown in from India.
以印度旁遮普邦每年秋天的浓烟为例，那里有数百万农民放火焚烧他们的残茬地。浓烟向东漂移，包围了德里和北部平原的其他城市。还有环绕孟加拉国首都达卡的砖窑造成的污染。“在大多数情况下，不到50%的污染来自城市本身，”蒂莫尔先生说。在三个南亚首都科伦坡、达卡和加德满都，不到三分之一的空气污染来自城市内部。印度旁遮普省大约30%的污染来自巴基斯坦，而孟加拉国主要城市30%的污染来自印度。
[Paragraph 11]A better approach is to design and deploy controls across the far-flung zones, known as airsheds, in which air pollution circulates. This has been executed successfully in Europe and Chiqna, whose capital was until a few years ago as synonymous with smog as Delhi is today. Beijing’s air is much improved chiefly thanks to the creation, in 2013, of a powerful airshed-wide authority responsible for the capital city, Tianjin and 26 adjacent prefectures. In 2017 pm2.5 levels in Beijing were half those of the previous year.
一个更好的办法是在空气污染流通的偏远地区(称为气棚)设计和部署控制措施。这在欧洲和中国已经成功实施，直到几年前，中国的首都还是雾霾的代名词，就像今天的德里一样。北京的空气质量有了很大改善，这主要归功于2013年成立了一个权力很大的机构，负责管理首都天津及其周边26个地区。2017年，北京的pm2.5水平是上一年的一半。
[Paragraph 12]India is trying to follow this example in and around Delhi. In 2021 it launched a pollution-control agency, called the Commission for Air Quality Management (caqm), with responsibility for a 55,000-square-km area, encompassing the capital and parts of Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. It is home to 46m people. Its constituent authorities include Delhi and four states, several central-government ministries, and various universities and ngos. “The idea is not just to bulldoze, but to follow a practice by which everybody is taken into confidence,” says MM Kutty, the commission’s chairman.
印度正试图在德里及其周边地区效仿这一做法。2021年，印度成立了一个污染控制机构，名为空气质量管理委员会（caqm），负责55，000平方公里的区域，包括首都和哈里亚纳邦、拉贾斯坦邦和北方邦的部分地区。这是4600万人的家园。它的组成当局包括德里和四个邦、几个中央政府部委以及各种大学和非政府组织。委员会主席MM·库蒂说：“这个想法不仅仅是推土机，而是遵循一种让每个人都充满信心的做法。”
[Paragraph 13]Though many have criticised the caqm’s pace of progress, the early results are promising. According to official figures, Delhi’s average daily concentrations of pm2.5 declined in 2022, the body’s first full year of operation, to 98 micrograms per cubic metre from 105 the previous year. The number of hours of “severe” pm2.5 fell from 628 to 204. Yet more significant progress, the Bank suggests, is going to require a massive expansion of this approach.
尽管许多人批评空气质量管理委员会的进展速度，但初步结果是有希望的。根据官方数据，2022年，德里pm2.5的日均浓度从上一年的每立方米105微克降至每立方米98微克，这是该机构运营的第一个全年。“严重”pm2.5的小时数从628小时降至204小时。然而，世行认为，要取得更大的进展，还需要大规模扩展这一方法。
[Paragraph 14]It has identified six regional airsheds. They are vast areas, covering multiple urban, provincial and national jurisdictions. Significantly, four of the six span national borders. One stretches from eastern Iran into western Afghanistan and southern Pakistan; another covers much of north India and Bangladesh. According to the Bank’s modelling, the more co-ordinated the pollution controls adopted in these expanses, the more cost-effective and beneficial they would be.
它已经确定了六个区域气棚。这些都是广阔的区域，涵盖多个城市、省和国家管辖区。值得注意的是，这六个区域中有四个跨越国界。一条从伊朗东部延伸到阿富汗西部和巴基斯坦南部；另一个覆盖了北印度和孟加拉国的大部分地区。根据世行的模型，在这些地区采取的污染控制措施越协调，成本效益和效益就越高。
[Paragraph 15]The ideal scenario, it suggests, would be for authorities within a given airshed to co-operate on data-sharing and policy formulation, while each working towards a locally determined target. This would allow them to prioritise relatively easy or low-cost forms of pollution control—such as regulating brick kilns—over more difficult or expensive sorts, such as closing coal-fired power stations. The Bank reckons that in this scenario South Asian life expectancies would rise, infant mortality would drop and health-care expenditure would fall. For a cost of $5.7bn, it estimates the approach could bring economic benefits worth $52.5bn by 2030.
它认为，理想的情况是，一个特定地区的当局在数据共享和政策制定方面进行合作，同时各自朝着当地确定的目标努力。这将使他们能够优先考虑相对容易或成本较低的污染控制形式(如监管砖窑) ，而不是更困难或更昂贵的污染控制形式(如关闭燃煤电厂)。世行估计，在这种情况下，南亚的预期寿命将会提高，婴儿死亡率将会下降，医疗保健支出将会下降。据估计，到2030年，这种方法的成本为57亿美元，可带来价值525亿美元的经济效益。
[Paragraph 16] The idea of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan—let alone Afghanistan and Iran—working together to such an extent is, the Bank’s authors concede, “far from straightforward”. It might almost seem absurd. South Asia is one of the most unneighbourly, least-integrated regions in the world. It is haunted by a history of war and mutual suspicion. Its cross-border linkages are meagre. Trade within the region is just 5% of its members’ total trade; the corresponding figure for East Asia is 50%, according to the Brookings Institution, a think-tank in Washington, d.c.
世行的作者承认，孟加拉国、印度和巴基斯坦——更不用说阿富汗和伊朗——合作到如此程度的想法“远非直截了当”。这似乎很荒谬。南亚是世界上最不友好、最不一体化的地区之一。总是被战争和相互猜疑的历史所困扰。跨境联系也很少。该区域内的贸易仅占其成员国贸易总额的5%；根据华盛顿智库布鲁金斯学会的数据，东亚的相应数字是50%。
[Paragraph 17]Yet if anything could begin to knit the region’s divisions, perhaps the shared goal of helping its people breathe easier might. Air pollution is politically salient across South Asia and the very opposite of zero sum. The subcontinent’s winds blow back and forth; none of South Asia’s polluting countries and cities and villages is permanently upwind. To seriously reduce the blight from which all of them are suffering, they will all, in the end, have to co-operate.
然而，如果有什么可以开始缓解该地区的分歧，也许帮助其人民更轻松呼吸的共同目标可能会。空气污染在南亚政治上很突出，与零和正好相反。次大陆的风来回吹；南亚的污染国家和城市村庄没有一个是永久逆风的。为了真正减轻他们所有人所遭受的灾难，他们最终都必须合作。
