NEW DELHI: Torrents of thick black smoke billow up toward the smoggy skies as Kunti Desai feeds a coal-fired furnace to make tar for a Delhi road. Desai, whose hands and face are blackened by the soot, realises her job adds to the already noxious air in the city, which often outdoes Beijing as the most polluted in the world. But, she says, “this smoke brings me money”. “It is more important to feed and send my kids to school than to worry about the air,” adds the mother-of-two, who earns $40 a month. Delhi’s air is a toxic cocktail made up of dust and fumes from thousands of industrial and construction sites and millions of vehicles, which climate-change champion Al Gore has called “a life or death issue”. The skyline is covered in a haze due to atmospheric dust blown in from deserts and mass crop burning in neighbouring states, as well as smoke from open fires lit by millions like Kunti to keep warm or to cook food. According to a joint study by Boston-based Health Effects Institute and Delhi’s Energy Resources Institute, at least 3,000 people die prematurely every year in India’s capital because of high exposure to air pollution. Kunti’s life provides a snapshot of the challenge Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces ahead of a climate conference in Paris in December, where governments are to make pledges on cutting Earth-warming carbon emissions. At a time when most homes and factories suffer frequent blackouts, Modi is being urged to cut India’s heavy reliance on coal. World leaders have been steadily nudging India — the third-largest source of greenhouse gases — to announce its target, especially after the two top emitters, China and the United States, signed a pact in November. US President Barack Obama added to the pressure in January, saying the world did not “stand a chance against climate change” unless developing nations like India reduce dependence on fossil fuels. India has resisted committing itself to major emissions cuts, fearing they would compromise efforts to boost living standards in a country where more than a quarter of its 1.2 billion people are poor.
