How to end pollution

Context: A case for an independent regulatory agency with powers to penalise pollution.

Ways to deal with Air pollution: Taxing fuel and subsidising clean energy.

• Gradual action to deal with multiple sources of air pollution: 

• Replace Smokey firewood, dung and crop residue with cleaner fuels like LPG and induction stove.
• Replace coal fire plants with renewables and switching over to gas or hydrogen.
• Farmers should switch crops or adopt alternative methods of residue management.
• Diesel and petrol vehicles must gradually be replaced by electric or hydrogen fuel

• Institute an Environment Protection Agency:  that can levy pollution fee or cess, is that the regulatory decision need not be an all-or-nothing decision. Its features should be –

• Fees should be levied where production chain is most concentrated; for e.g. a fee on plastic production at refineries since it would be costly for small producers.

• Giving independence to the EPA:  

• A head appointed for a five-year term removable only by impeachment, 
• A guaranteed budget funded by a small percentage tax on all industries will generate revenue.
• Autonomy to hire staff and to set pollution fees after justification through scientific studies.
• EPA independence will mean that political lobbying by affected industries to stop pollution fees won’t work.

Issues in dealing with Air pollution

• Presence of multiple sources: The biggest sources nationally are cooking fires, coal-fired power plants, various industries, crop residue burning, and construction and road dust.

• Existing laws: which doesn’t allow to levy pollution fee or cess based on pollution emissions

• Lack of scientific and technically competent Judiciary: It has no capacity to conduct pollution monitoring or scientific studies or even evaluate the results and tend to act only during crises.

• Underfunded pollution control boards

• Unprofitable investments: Businessmen, farmers, or even people deciding on their choice of cooking fuel, can’t make their business or everyday decisions based on “national interest”.

Conclusion: We need the scientific and technical capacity that only a securely funded independent EPA can bring to shrink pollution down to nothing.