Abstract
India’s capital, New Delhi, has notoriously poor air quality. While the overall cost of emission reduction is miniscule compared with the overall health and economic benefits, policymakers have been unsuccessful due to resistance from specific stakeholders. We measure the economic impact on the four states within the Delhi airshed across eight emission reduction scenarios for four major sectors of the economy—i.e., construction, transportation, agriculture, and power. The findings suggest that a transition from coal to RE coupled with transport electrification benefits all four states and the nation. Policies that attempt to reduce emissions—e.g., Happy Seeders for agriculture and emission control systems for coal power plants—without any subsidy from the government lead to adverse impacts across most metrics.
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Notes
- 1.
Using rice stubble as fuel for electricity generation—if uncontrolled—will have emissions. We assume that these biomass-based electricity generation facilities are regulated and hence have installed the necessary air pollution control systems.
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Bharvirkar, R., Pollitt, H., Joshi, S. (2021). Managing Delhi’s Air Quality: Exploring Economic Implications of Airshed Management Approach. In: Mukhopadhyay, K. (eds) Economy-Wide Assessment of Regional Policies in India. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75668-0_9
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