Dr. Arvind Kumar
Air pollution today stands as one of humanity’s most pervasive and deadly challenges; an invisible pandemic that unites health, economy, and climate in a single crisis. The WHO warns that nearly every person on the planet now breathes air that fails to meet safe standards, with fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅) contributing to over eight million deaths annually. The State of Global Air 2024 further notes that global PM₂.₅ levels remain nearly five times higher than WHO guidelines, showing no signs of abatement.
UN Secretary General António Guterres warns, “humanity is waging war on nature”. This degradation mirrors the broader environmental emergency. The Global Risks Report 2025 identifies pollution, climate inaction, and biodiversity loss among the most severe threats to the world’s stability in the coming decade, while the Climate Risk Index 2025 records more than 9,400 extreme-weather events since 1993 causing trillions in losses and hundreds of thousands of deaths. The evidence is unambiguous: environmental decline is no longer a side effect of growth; it defines its limits.
At the heart of this crisis lies a profound miscalculation; the neglect of our environmental capital. This capital, comprising the planet’s stock of air, water, soil, biodiversity, and ecosystem services, underwrites every economy on earth. Yet our accounting systems render it invisible, rewarding the depletion of natural assets as economic gain. If a corporation sold its factory to fund dividends, it would be called bankruptcy. Why, then, do we celebrate when nations sell their environmental capital for short-term growth?
Decoupled Growth
India’s environmental journey reveals a striking paradox. We rank among the top ten nations in climate action, pledge net-zero emissions by 2070, and lead the world in renewable energy expansion. Yet we stand 176th out of 180 countries on the Environmental Performance Index with air quality at 177th and projected emissions at 172nd. We celebrate progress, even as the air we breathe remains ungoverned.
The economic toll exposes the illusion. Air pollution costs India and China over 10% of their GDP each year, while particulate matter pollution drains the global economy of more than $8 trillion over 6% of global GDP. Delhi’s post September in 2025, with PM₂.₅ levels nearly 100 times above WHO limits, is not just a health emergency but an economic implosion. We measure growth after the damage is donecounting the ashes, not the air.
Water pollution compounds this tragedy, revealing the same pattern of ecological insolvency that defines our air and soil. Freshwater systems that once sustained civilizations now carry industrial effluents and untreated sewage, while agriculture loses over $26 billion annually to ground-level ozone. Biodiversity collapses silently even as GDP projections soar; a textbook case of what economists call “decoupled growth,” where prosperity expands by eroding the very foundations that make it possible.
The symptoms are now visible in our cities. The monsoon of 2025 brought 30% more rainfall than normal, yet urban India was brought to its knees. The city of lakes that was Bengaluru now drowns in its own water because natural buffers have been traded for concrete. Flash floods in Delhi and waterlogging across metros expose the fragility of our adaptation capacity: cities built for a stable climate now face volatility they cannot absorb. Urban mobility, a key lever for emission reduction, remains gridlocked; the transport sector already contributes 13% of national emissions while public transit lags behind population growth. We are not witnessing “decoupled growth,” but displaced risk where environmental debt compounds quietly until it crashes through our streets.
India’s environmental governance suffers from deep structural flaws rooted in fragmentation, conflict, and absence of integration. Bureaucratic silos between the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, state agencies, and local bodies create overlapping mandates and weak coordination, while Pollution Control Boards remain underfunded and ineffective. The collision between development and conservation further erodes credibility forest diversions under the Forest Conservation Amendment Act and diluted Environmental Impact Assessments often prioritize growth over ecological integrity. Underlying these issues is the absence of unified parameters: India lacks a comprehensive renewable energy law or a framework to measure environmental capital alongside GDP. In contrast, Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index offers a transformative model integrating wellbeing, culture, and environmental stewardship as equal pillars of progress. With 60% forest cover and steady growth, Bhutan demonstrates that economy and ecology can coexist. Even Brazil has begun adopting this approach on UNESCO’s Fernando de Noronha island. India, despite pioneering tools like SEEA and NCAVES, has yet to embed them in policymaking; building frameworks but failing to use them as instruments of governance.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has articulated a compelling vision through the Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) Movement and the Panchamrit framework. The commitment to 500 GW non-fossil capacity by 2030, to reduce carbon intensity by 45%, and to achieve net-zero by 2070 represents genuine ambition. The PM has stated that “real sustainability begins not with negotiations but with nurturing.” Yet between vision and implementation lies a chasm where governance crumbles.
Way Forward The path forward demands transformation on four fronts. First, India must integrate environmental capital accounting into GDP to make ecological loss economically visible. The UNEP estimates that investing $7.4 trillion in nature-related SDGs by 2030 could yield $152 trillion in benefits; a 20:1 return India cannot afford to ignore. Second, governance must be devolved empowering local bodies, from village councils to city districts, to design context-specific adaptation strategies, much like Finland’s municipal carbon-neutral networks. Third, enforcement must match ambition Pollution Control Boards need funding and autonomy, and corrupt environmental assessments must face criminal, not bureaucratic, consequences. Fourth, innovation must scale renewable energy integration, resilient sanitation, and aspirational public transport must define urban and rural transformation alike. India has the tools to make peace but frameworks without governance remain poetry. The test lies in whether the Panchamrit vision translates into cleaner air, safer water, and healthier futures. Environmental capital is not theory it is the line between sustainability and survival.
*Editor, Focus Global Reporter
