Imagine you live in one of the UK's most polluted cities London, Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow and the likes, where pollution levels are said to be 'moderate' at 40, yet they still cause the deaths of some 43,000 people per year.
Well pop over to New Delhi where the pollution level is off the scale at 900! Get that - 900! This this the capital of a country with a growing population of well past one billion people. A country building more and more coal fired power stations, it has 434 so far. It also has 206 gas fired stations and 49 diesel powered units. It also has a culture of burning crop stubble rather than ploughing back in and this is estimated to produce 44% of all pollution after the harvest season. It is growing its industry exponentially.
It is the third largest polluter in the world and 14 out of 15 of the world's most contaminated cities are in India, so what is it doing? Well cars with odd or even number plates can only use the roads on alternate days - during an emergency!
Meanwhile the UK, ranked 18th with 1.2% of emissions, is about to spend something like £260bn in the next decade, regardless of the party in power, attempting to become CO2 neutral by 2030(ish).
Methinks Greta and Extinction Rebellion should be having words with China, the US, India and a few others and give us some slack. The top six polluters produce 67% of all emissions annually and if they do not cut back, as seems to be the case, all the rest with the best of intentions are just pi55ing in the wind. New Delhi will come to us despite what we do.