India and China are the countries with the largest number of people in the world. There are about 2.7 billion people living in these two countries which are more than one-third of the whole population in the whole world. As shown below, the population of China and India has almost 40% of people on earth.
The air pollution from these two countries is high as well mainly because of their large population with ranked 4th in China and 5th in India. As shown on this webpage. , The real-time recorded air pollution data implies that India and China have serious air pollution.
Credit from @National Park Service source
Recently, a study shows that if we are able to eliminate the pollutants emission of India and China, about 15 million years of life in China and 11 million years of life in India can be saved. Although there are plenty of articles talking about the hazard effect of particulate matter(AKA PM2.5) to human. However, there is no essay has quantified the impact of particulate matter in a specific region and an operatable strategy of solving this problem.
In this study, the researchers from Harvard calculated the change in mortality and life expectancy in each province in China and India with the help of state-of-the-art atmospheric chemistry modeling. The result shows that Shandong, Henan, and Sichuan provinces in China, and Uttar Pradesh state in India needs to replace coal-fired powerplant into less pollutant power generating technologies like wind or water power generation.
With this study, we can start to identify all the region with high pollutant due to coal-fired power plants all over the world and change them into a more clean and renewable energy source. As the result, the world would be a better place without pollutant from coal-fired power plants.
