Outdoor Air Pollution in Delhi - an Update

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'the pollution levels entered the "severe plus" or "emergency" category late Thursday night.  Delhi Chief Minister ... described the city as a "gas chamber" while distributing      5 million breathing masks'      .......... NDTV (1/Nov/2019) & BBC

Exactly a year ago, I had published an article detailing the science of outdoor air-pollution.   It is responsible for more than 4 million premature deaths, largely from vehicles and industry, throughout the world.  People in developing countries suffer the most serious pollution levels; people living in less affluent areas are the worst affected.  Air pollution (indoors and outdoors) deaths in India are estimated at 2.5 million per year.

About 75% of outdoor air pollution is due to human activities.  Most sources of air pollution are well beyond the control of individuals and demand/require concerted action by local and national level policy-makers working in sectors like transport, energy, waste management, urbal planning, and agriculture. 

Historically, big cities in China and India have had the worst outdoor air pollution.  China has taken steps to control pollution, reducing it by 17% between 2010 and 2015 but the situation in India has not improved at all.  It is same story year after year.  The slide shows the PM2.5 levels on 7th November 2017 in Delhi:

The outdoor air pollution is a problem not only in Delhi but in most of India.  According to WHO, india has 14 out of the 15 top most polluted cities in the world in terms of PM2.5 concentrations.  These are:
Delhi (153), Patna (149), Gwaliar (144), Raipur (134), Ahemdabad (100), Lucknow (96), Firozabad (96), Kanpur (93), Amritsar (92), Ludhiana (91), Allahabad (88), Agra (88) and Khanna (88)

In the end, the problem really boils down to the number of people living on the Earth. As more and more people move to western lifestyles with unbridled consumption; the human footprint, that is already too big, will increase further and our planet will just not be able to cope with the demands put on it. 
Air pollution is just one of the ways that the Earth is responding to our irresponsibility. 

PS:  4th November 2019:  The Delhi pollution continues with authorities unable to provide a solution.  

https://ektalks.blogspot.com/2018/11/air-pollution-invisible-killer.html

2023 Report:  (Outdoor Air Pollution Levels are getting worse)  All but one of the 100 cities with the world’s worst air pollution last year were in Asia, according to a new report, with the climate crisis playing a pivotal role in bad air quality that is risking the health of billions of people worldwide.  The vast majority of these cities — 83 — were in India and all exceeded the World Health Organization’s air quality guidelines by more than 10 times, according to the report by IQAir, which tracks air quality worldwide.