Air Pollution as a Driver of Climate Change and the Role of Urban Planning in Mitigation

Abstract

Air pollution has emerged as one of the most pressing environmental and public health challenges confronting India, and it is simultaneously among the clearest observable indicators of anthropogenic climate change. Since the middle of the twentieth century, greenhouse gases generated by human activity have constituted the dominant cause of observed warming of the climate system and ambient concentrations of these gases are widely treated as a diagnostic measure of climatic disturbance. Rapid urbanisation, sustained industrial expansion, and a steeply rising vehicle fleet have together elevated concentrations of particulate matter, oxides of nitrogen and sulphur dioxide across Indian cities to levels that routinely exceed prescribed national and international standards. The present paper argues that urban planning constitutes a decisive, and presently underutilised, instrument for moderating these outcomes. The study examines the principal sources of emissions, ecological and economic consequences, and evaluates the planning instruments available for mitigation. The analysis indicates that spatially coherent land-use regulation, investment in mass and non-motorised transit, protection and expansion of the urban green network, enforcement of energy-efficient building norms and the deliberate siting of charging and renewable energy infrastructure can jointly deliver measurable reductions in emission loads.