Household level pollution in India: patterns and projections

Abstract

Solid fuels are still a major source for cooking in many households in India causing significant disease and global warming burden. This study analyses the pollution–income relationship (for both local and global pollution), separately across rural and urban households in India based on unit record data on fuel consumption obtained through the National Sample Survey for 2009–2010. The fuel consumption and pollution (local and global) patterns are analysed at regional and all-India level for rural and urban households. Highlighting the significant difference between rural and urban India in terms of access to clean energy, the results show inverted-U shape relationship between pollution and income among rural households and monotonically decreasing relationship among urban households for local pollution. Global pollution, on the other hand, is monotonically increasing among both rural and urban households reflecting carbon intensive energy use. Based on the estimated relationship, the study makes an attempt to project household level pollution for 2026. The study analyses the emissions of particulate matter and greenhouse gases under various policy scenarios including deeper penetration of clean fuels and wider utilization of improved cook stoves. The article argues that penetration of improved cook stoves has significantly large potential to reduce both local and global pollution from the household sector in India.