KATHMANDU, July 15
The annual update of the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) released in June revealed that the current air pollution level in Nepal shortens the life of an average Nepali by 4.1 years.
The release of the update, which is an initiative of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, written by Michael Greenstone, Christa Hasenkopf and Ken Lee, also listed Nepal as the third most polluted country in the world, following Bangladesh, the most polluted, and India, the second most polluted countries in the world.
According to the World Health Organisation, the most health-relevant air pollutants are particulate matter (PM) with a diameter of 10 micron or less, which can penetrate deep inside the lungs and induce a reaction of the surface and defence cells. "Most of these pollutants are the product of the burning of fossil fuels, but their composition may vary according to their sources," the WHO states.
The latest WHO air pollution guidelines recommend PM 2.5 (particulate pollutant aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 microns in size) to be less than 5 µg/m3. Nepal, however, has 47.1 µg/m3 of PM2.5 in its air, as per the AQLI report. It is nine times more than the recommended limit of WHO.
The AQLI report also states, "In each of these countries - Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan -the impact of air pollution on life expectancy is substantially higher than that of other large health threats.
Smoking, for instance, reduces life expectancy in these countries by as much as 2.5 years; unsafe water and sanitation by roughly one year; and alcohol use by about half a year."
While Nepal has done better as compared to 2019 in terms of PM2.5 concentration - it was 61.2 μg/m (according to the annual AQLI report of 2021), it is still very scary considering the fact that it is actually costing people lives, especially of the population living in the southwestern districts of the country. As per the report, in this part of the country, people can lose as many as seven years. The region is closely connected to the Indo Gangetic Plain (IGP) of India, the most polluted region in India with the capital Delhi which had a PM2.5 concentration exceeding 107 µg/m3 in 2020, the report says.
'Nepal Burden Of Disease 2017', a country report based on the Global Burden of Disease 2017 Study had shared that Nepal could avert seven per cent of total deaths, six per cent of total early deaths, and four per cent of total disease burden by reducing ambient particulate matter pollution.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 16, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
