At the time of writing this, on the eve of Diwali 2018, the AQI in Delhi lies steadfastly in the “Hazardous” category, as it has been for several hours now. Yet, I can hear the sound of firecrackers outside my house, in open defiance of not just concerns of health and self-preservation, but also a […]
Some of the earlier posts here have discussed the rising temperatures in Indian cities, the imminent heatwave conditions (particularly at 2ºC global warming), and the Urban Heat Island effect. The recent IPCC Report strongly recommends that policy-making be geared towards limiting global warming to 1.5ºC – an uphill task for Indian policy-makers, considering the Indian […]
The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) released its Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C last week, and it paints a bleak picture. First, it highlights the devastating consequences of failing to curtail global warming to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels, and the grave impact of the additional 0.5ºC above this threshold. And second, it […]
One of the terms that has entered the climate change narrative is “Urban Heat Island” or UHI, which refers to the heat accumulation phenomenon arising from urban construction and human activities. UHIs are defined as “those urban areas where the surface, sub-surface or air temperatures are higher than the corresponding temperatures in surrounding rural areas“. […]
Ride-hailing apps offer a certain ease of transportation, but this convenience imposes an externality on the environment and the roads, which are public goods. A negative externality is a situation where a commercial activity imposes a cost on third parties, and where this social cost is not accounted for in the price of the good […]
The Task and Finish Group on Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Licensing in the United Kingdom released a report recently, which contained recommendations on regulating the taxi industry. One of the recommendations of the Group pertained to a potential upper limit on the number of taxis licensed to operate: “Government should legislate to allow local […]
The Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur recently published its findings on the correlation between the air pollution and the changing monsoon cycle in India in Nature Communications. The article can be accessed here. The process of cloud formation and precipitation is impacted by atmospheric aerosols. Higher aerosol concentration in the atmosphere, a direct result of increasing […]
That the winter months will arrive in Delhi with life-threatening amounts of air pollution now seems to have been internalized by the government as a matter of inevitability. As per a recent report, the Delhi Government appears to be confident about having made the right efforts to handle the imminent air pollution this year. This […]
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