Air pollutant emissions from power plants and other industries continue to increase in India, Saudi Arabia and Iran, the report says. Air pollutant emissions from power plants and other industries continue to increase in India, Saudi Arabia and Iran, the report says.

A new report by Greenpeace India shows the country is the largest emitter of sulphur dioxide in the world, with more than 15% of all the anthropogenic sulphur dioxide hotspots detected by the NASA OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instrument) satellite. Almost all of these emissions in India are because of coal-burning, the report says.

The vast majority of coal-based power plants in India lack flue-gas desulphurisation technology to reduce air pollution.

The Singrauli, Neyveli, Talcher, Jharsuguda, Korba, Kutch, Chennai, Ramagundam, Chandrapur and Koradi thermal power plants or clusters are the major emission hotspots in India, the report says.

In a first step to combat pollution levels, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change introduced, for the first time, sulphur dioxide emission limits for coal-fired power plants in December 2015. But the deadline for the installation of flue-gas desulphurisation (FGD) in power plants has been extended from 2017 to 2022.

Source: Greenpeace Environment Trust Source: Greenpeace Environment Trust

The report also includes NASA data on the largest point sources of sulphur dioxide.

The largest sulphur dioxide emission hotspots have been found in Russia, South Africa, Iran, Saudi Arabia, India, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Serbia.

Air pollutant emissions from power plants and other industries continue to increase in India, Saudi Arabia and Iran, the report says.

In Russia, South Africa, Mexico and Turkey, emissions are currently not increasing — however, there is not a lot of progress in tackling them either.

Of the world’s major emitters, China and the United States have been able to reduce emissions rapidly. They have achieved this feat by switching to clean energy sources; China, in particular, has achieved success by dramatically improving emission standards and enforcement for sulphur dioxide control.

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