It is that time of year again when 37-year-old Ramesh Mathur wakes up choking every day, and becomes a shut-in, with five air purifiers running in his Delhi home. Mathur, a personal relations manager at an international firm and native of the capital, is a long-term asthmatic and has been warned to either move out or stay indoors if he wishes to live till 60.
“I just do not step out of the house at all for a month or so. If I step onto my balcony at all, I feel itchy in the throat and my eyes water. This is an apocalyptic situation,” said Mathur, who has been aggressively posting about deteriorating air quality on his social media account.
His plight was portrayed in the recently released Lancet Countdown report on climate and health, which confirmed that the climate crisis is taking a huge toll on India’s health. The report showed that nearly two-thirds of the indicators tracking climate-linked health threats have reached unprecedented levels globally. It also found that at least 1.7 million people died in India in 2022 from outdoor PM2.5 air pollution from human activities, a huge spike from 724,000 deaths in 2020, and 41% of these deaths were directly related to the burning of fossil fuels.