Pakistan’s smog crisis: What can be done and how?

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) – Large swaths of northeastern and northwestern Pakistan are currently choking with pollution-fueled smog, triggering a surge in respiratory diseases and forcing the government to take desperate measures such as shuttering schools, parks, and other public venues.

Warnings abound of further deterioration in air quality in the coming years, particularly if authorities fail to come up with a serious strategy for immediate and sustainable steps.

Along with Indian capital New Delhi, Pakistan’s second-largest city of Lahore and various other districts of the northeastern Punjab province have been dominating the list of the world’s most polluted cities for several years now, with their air quality crossing all possible levels of danger.

Satellite images released by NASA earlier this month showed Punjab, and particularly the provincial capital Lahore, cloaked in a toxic haze that extended to India’s northern regions and New Delhi.

Lahore – home to over 14 million people – had an air quality index of above 1,900, a record high, earlier this month. Any reading more than 300 is considered hazardous, while the acceptable range is between 0 to 50.

Hundreds of people are facing health issues such as sore throats and itchy eyes, with doctors and authorities advising public to stay indoors as much as possible.

Air pollution claims an estimated 128,000 lives in Pakistan every year, according to Fair Finance Pakistan, a non-government body working to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

UNICEF also issued a recent warning for Pakistan, saying more than 11 million children under age 5 are exposed to smog in Punjab.

“Unfortunately, environmental issues like smog have reached a point where they cannot be addressed overnight. Pakistan now needs a serious approach to deal with this ever-worsening problem,” said Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, an environmentalist based in the capital Islamabad.

Imrana Tiwana, another environment expert in Lahore, warned that Pakistan is simply not ready to face all the humanitarian crises emerging because of climate change. Her remarks referred to regular droughts, heat waves, unseasonal rains and floods that have become ever more frequent in the South Asian country over the past few decades.

Smog, she added, was restricted to just Lahore up until a decade ago, but it has now crossed the borders of Punjab and entered the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.

- Need for immediate measures

Speaking to Anadolu, Sheikh emphasized the urgent need for both long- and short-term measures, including decarbonization of the economy in accordance with the Paris Agreement, increasing public transportation in big cities, and conversion of two-stroke and three-stroke vehicles into battery electric vehicles (BEVs).

The Paris Agreement, which entered into force in 2016, is a legally binding international treaty that aims to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and boost adaptation to climate change.

As a short-term step, there can be an additional weekly day off or arrangements for working from home, he said.

Only public transport could be allowed on that day to reduce vehicular emissions, which make up more than 80% of the air pollution in Lahore, he added.

Of this 80%, emissions from two-stroke vehicles account for 69%, according to the Punjab Environmental Protection Department.

Part of the smog crisis, according to Sheikh, can be put down to Pakistan’s “avid” dependence on fossil fuels, and that too low-quality fossil fuels, said Shaikh.

“We have poor micro-standards, micro-testing, and fitness testing systems. Otherwise, the same quantity of fossil fuel in a better environmental governance will not have as adverse an impact as we have in Pakistan,” he said.

- Regional cooperation

Pakistan blames the increasing smog on winds from neighboring India, mainly due to stubble burning by farmers in India’s Punjab province.

“Stubble burning is the biggest problem that we’ve been facing in winters,” Raja Jahangir Anwar, environment secretary for Punjab, told Anadolu.

He said unilateral measures to curb the practice will not work, stressing the importance of a joint and collaborative approach.

However, environmentalist Sheikh dismissed what he views as a “wrong narrative” being pushed by both Indian and Pakistani authorities.

“Farmers only burn stubble because they want to increase their income by growing vegetables between the two major cropping seasons,” he explained.

“Instead of blaming them, we need to work on providing them technologies that can help them grow a third crop.”

To this, Anwar said the Punjab government is already providing subsidies to farmers for machinery that will help avoid burning stubble.

Environment specialist Tiwana also emphasized that climate change-induced smog is no longer a local issue for Pakistan.

“It’s a regional problem and requires a regional approach to be addressed properly,” she told Anadolu.

The worsening situation has already led to Pakistani Punjab’s Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz calling for “climate diplomacy” with India.

The process to engage with India, according to Anwar, has been initiated through the Foreign Ministry, and an official letter will soon be sent to New Delhi.

Pakistan plans to convene a regional climate conference next month, involving India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and other countries, to chalk out a joint strategy, he said.

Despite frosty relations between the two nuclear rivals, Anwar remains optimistic about the chances of successful diplomatic outreach.

“The two sides have no other choice because the wind does not care about borders,” he said.

In addition to stubble burning, New Delhi and Lahore also share a burden of urban pollution, he added.

“This has to be long-term diplomacy that continues for decades. There will be ups and downs, but I am sure it will succeed, as there is no other option,” said Anwar.