A Breath of Change: Solutions for Cleaner Air in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and Himalayan Foothills (Executive Summary)

This Solutions Book, A Breath of Change, sets out a practical roadmap for achieving the region’s shared, intermediate target of reducing annual average PM2.5 concentrations below 35 µg/m³ by 2035 (“35 by 35”), while laying the foundation for progressively cleaner air. Building on the diagnostics and country experiences synthesized in Striving for Clean Air (2023), the solutions book moves from why clean air matters and what drives pollution to how to address air pollution. In other words, how coordinated, feasible, and evidence-based solutions can be implemented at scale.

The IGP-HF airshed, an interconnected system spanning 13 jurisdictions across Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan, demands solutions that are both multi-sectoral and multi-jurisdictional. Although national circumstances vary, the main causes of pollution are generally similar and can be ranked by their contribution, in descending order:

1. Cooking & Heating: Use of solid fuels in households
2. Industry: Reliance on fossil fuels and biomass in industrial production and power generation, without adequate
   pollution control technology
3. Transport: Use of highly polluting internal combustion engines, especially Heavy-Duty Vehicles
4. Agriculture: Crop residue burning, and inefficient management of fertilizer and manure
5. Waste: Open burning of municipal waste, inadequate management of construction and demolition debris, and road dust

As air flows freely across administrative and national borders, no jurisdiction can achieve clean air on its own. In many
jurisdictions, more than half of ambient PM2.5 concentrations originate outside local boundaries, carried by regional pollutants. This underscores the need for coordinated action across sectors and jurisdictions—linking national policies with subnational implementation and cross-border cooperation.

The Solutions Book highlights a portfolio of interventions in each of the five key pollution emitting sectors: scaling up access to clean cooking fuels and appliances (Chapter 3); electrifying and modernizing industrial boilers, furnaces, kilns and thermal power plants (Chapter 4); accelerating the transition to electric and efficient vehicles alongside improvements in fuel quality, and strengthening of non-motorized transport in the transport sector (Chapter 5); promoting sustainable agricultural crop residue, livestock manure and fertilizer management (Chapter 6); and improving waste collection, segregation, and recycling (Chapter 7).

In parallel, protective sectors, particularly health (Chapter 8) and education (Chapter 9), play a vital role in helping people cope while air quality remains poor. These sectors safeguard human capital through interventions such as public-health advisories, school-based awareness campaigns, improved classroom ventilation and filtration, provision of protective masks, and accessible health services for those affected by air pollution-related illnesses. Strengthening these systems ensures that populations, especially children and other vulnerable groups, are better protected from ongoing exposure, even as structural emission reductions take effect over time.

Together, these abatement and protection efforts form an integrated approach to cleaner, healthier, and more resilient development across the IGP-HF region. Realizing this vision requires four mutually reinforcing pillars, each critical to translating ambition into results: Information, Incentives, Institutions, and Infrastructure. These cross-cutting themes are woven throughout the sectoral chapters, with deeper exploration of governance frameworks, market-based instruments and regional cooperation provided in Chapters 10 to 12.