The Price of the Air We Breathe, the Heat We Endure

This report was funded by a Kyoto University–CDS (Centre for Development Studies) Trivandrum research grant.

Abstract

This report analyzes Delhi’s accelerating twin crises of extreme heat and chronic air pollution through a large primary household survey of 582 households and 2,022 adults across six localities, spanning informal JJ (jhuggi-jhopri) clusters, middle-income colonies, and affluent neighborhoods. It documents how land surface temperatures approaching 49°C and persistently hazardous air quality intersect with urban dynamics, including the Urban Heat Island effect, vehicular emissions, construction dust, and regional stubble burning. A class-based income stratification (underprivileged, middle, affluent) reveals stark asymmetries in exposure and adaptive capacity: affluent households almost universally possess air conditioners and air purifiers, while underprivileged households lack access to such private protections. The consequences are wide-ranging, including sleep disruption, higher electricity costs for basic cooling, increased medical expenses during polluted winters, and educational disruptions from school closures, with wealthier families better able to buffer these shocks through digital and financial resources.

Workplace conditions further entrench these inequalities. Most affluent workers benefit from air conditioned environments and paid leave during extreme weather, whereas underprivileged workers predominantly labor outdoors or in poorly ventilated spaces without leave, suffering direct income losses and being forced to work longer hours under hazardous conditions. The report also identifies a divergence between objective and perceived pollution: affluent residents correctly associate peak pollution with winter, while poor residents near landfills and dumps experience pollution as a continuous, undifferentiated threat, and around 40% of all households are unfamiliar with the term “climate change.” Although respondents broadly recognize vehicles, deforestation, and industry as key drivers of environmental degradation, an “inequality funnel” in vehicle ownership underscores environmental injustice: those least responsible for emissions suffer the most harm. Government responses are widely viewed as inadequate, with limited and uneven access to green spaces, cooling shelters, and public health coverage. The report concludes that effective environmental policy in Delhi and similar cities in the Global South must be explicitly class-aware, prioritizing community cooling infrastructure, progressive energy pricing, robust public transport, and strengthened public health systems to break feedback loops that reproduce environmental and socio-economic inequality.