Clearing the Air: How Delhi Broke the Logjam on Air Quality Reforms [.pdf, 1164.7Kb]
	This article was published in the April 2004 issue of Environment. Volume 46, Number 3, pages 22-39. Posted with permission. © Heldref Publications, 2004. www.heldref.org/html/env.html

RFF Researchers Ruth Greenspan Bell, Urvashi Narain, and David Simpson and their Indian colleague, Kuldeep Mathur, in "Clearing the Air: How Delhi Broke the Logjam on Air Quality Reforms" (Environment magazine, April 2004) examine the role of India’s Supreme Court in improving the air quality of the capital city of Delhi through a series of orders. The best known of these mandated conversion of commercial motor vehicles to use of compressed natural gas as a fuel.

They detail how this dramatic changeover occurred during a nearly 20-year legal, administrative, and political process. The global attention focused on Delhi and its environmental success story motivated the authors to undertake an assessment of the process, reconstruct events, speak to key actors, and critique the policies from a non-allied, non-advocacy point of view.

Among their conclusions: the Indian Supreme Court took great care to select remedies that could work in the prevailing Indian technical and institutional realities – including the strength and performance of prevailing enforcement procedures and the existence a culture of compliance. Countries who seek to follow India’s lead must be equally pragmatic about their own unique institutional and political realities.

Impressed by the Delhi experience, NGOs in a number of countries in Asia have brought similar lawsuits to their own Supreme Courts. The researchers suggest that the results of this case study present opportunities and lessons for other developing nations facing air-quality challenges.

See also: http://www.rff.org/rff/news/features/clearing-the-air.cfm