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January Jan 26: Environmental Education Day March Mar 21: Internationa...

The history of air pollution in Delhi is a decades-long struggle between rapid urbanization and environmental sustainability. Once a city with a clear sky, Delhi now faces an annual winter crisis that has turned into a global case study for urban pollution management. A Timeline of Delhi's Pollution History Delhi's pollution history can be broken down into three distinct "eras" of intervention and crisis. 1. The 1990s: The Rise of the Supreme Court In the early 90s, Delhi's air was already deteriorating due to old diesel buses and industrial expansion. 1996: Environmentalist M.C. Mehta won a landmark case in the Supreme Court, leading to the "shipting of industries" out of the city.1998: The Supreme Court ordered the entire public transport fleet (buses and autos) to switch from diesel/petrol to CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). This was one of the world's most ambitious fuel shifts. 2. 2000–2015: The Growth Explosion While CNG initially cleared the air, the city's population and vehicle count exploded. 2002–2010: The Delhi Metro was launched, providing a massive relief to public transport. However, the number of private cars increased by over 10% annually.2014: The World Health Organization (WHO) declared Delhi the most polluted city in the world, shocking...

Global Executive Summary The start of 2026 is marked by a "tri-planetary crisis": record-high winter temperatures, a surge in atmospheric microplastics, and severe air quality alerts across the Northern Hemisphere. A major Oxfam study released this month revealed that the wealthiest 1% of the global population exhausted their entire 2026 carbon budget in the first 10 days of...