All mega cities in India, irrespective of their locations in different geo-climatic zones, faced the challenge of worsening PM2.5 levels during the winter season of 2022-23.

“This winter has been the cleanest in New Delhi-NCR since large-scale air quality monitoring started in 2018,” said Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director-research, and advocacy, Centre for Science and Environment, while releasing here CSE’s latest analysis of winter air pollution levels.

“The iron and steel industry is an emission-intensive sector. A new analysis shows it is possible to bring down carbon dioxide emissions from the iron and steel sector drastically by 2030, while more than doubling India’s output of steel,” said Sunita Narain, director general of the Centre for Science and Environment, speaking at a day-long stakeholder workshop organized here on ‘Decarbonising India’s Iron and Steel Sector by 2030 and Beyond’.

Despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pre-poll promises to voters in Agra and the holy cities of Mathura, Vrindavan of restoring the original glory of the Yamuna river, not a single baby step has been taken in this direction to date since 2014, say activists...

“Our new analysis shows it is possible to bring down carbon dioxide emissions from our iron and steel sector drastically by 2030 while tripling India’s output of steel. We can emit even less than what we do today – but all this will need planning, technology, and funds,” says Sunita Narain, director general of the Centre for Science and Environment, referring to CSE’s recent assessment report on the emissions footprints of India’s iron and steel sector and how it can be ‘decarbonized’.

India recorded extreme weather events on 242 of the 273 days between January 1 and September 30 this year. This means that more than 88 percent of the time over these nine months, the country was witnessing an extreme weather event of some sort happening in one or more of its regions.