The Indian government has said it intends to use hydrogen-based fuel technology to help combat pollution, as Delhi was once again enveloped in “severe emergency” levels of smog.
Pollution levels in the capital peaked to dangerously high levels just over a week after the city endured its longest spell of hazardous air quality since public records began.
The overall air quality index in the city was 494 on Wednesday morning, according to the monitoring agency Safar, almost 10 times the level deemed safe by the World Health Organization (WHO).
It prompted judges at India’s supreme court to once again criticise the government for failing to prevent noxious conditions in the capital and surrounding states.
“In our view, little constructive efforts have been made by the government and other stakeholders to find solutions to the problem,” said the supreme court judges Ranjan Gogoi and SA Bobde. “The whole of north India […] is suffering from the issue of air pollution.”
However, the solicitor general, Tushar Mehta, told the supreme court that the central government was exploring the introduction of hydrogen fuel technology – to be specially developed by Japanese experts – across the capital as an alternative to some of the polluting fuels used in factories, cars and public transport.
Hydrogen fuel, which produces only water as a byproduct, is increasingly used in China, Japan and Germany as a clean energy alternative in public transport, and was pivotal in helping Japan tackle its pollution crisis.
The government will submit a full report on the hydrogen fuel proposal to the supreme court by early December.
One of the biggest causes of pollution, farmers in the nearby states of Punjab and Haryana burning their crop stubble, has carried on unabated, despite warnings by the supreme court. So far this year, Punjab has registered 48,683 crop fires and it is the smoke from these flames alongside colder weather conditions that lock in the fumes that have been a key contributor to northern India’s pollution crisis of the past few weeks.
It was into this severe pollution and thick brown smog, which limited visibility to a few metres, that Prince Charles arrived on Wednesday, on his first stop on a two-day visit to India. Top on his agenda is tackling climate change and environmental concerns. On Wednesday afternoon he met with the Indian Meteorological Department in Delhi.