The recent readings on the Air Quality Index (AQI) in Lahore and Multan have surpassed modern reasoning and can—in no uncertain terms—be deemed a humanitarian disaster.
This entirely man-made crisis is now visible from outer space, resulting in international media attention and multifaceted outrage and concern in local online and print media.
Despite its severity, successive governments in Punjab have demonstrated a lacklustre response consisting of weak enforcement of an alleged Anti-Smog Policy, infrastructure deficiencies, succumbing to economic pressures, misplaced resourcing priorities, and a lack of political will.
Punjab’s urban population is centred around major cities like Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Multan, and Sargodha, which act as economic and industrial hubs. The development of these cities has fuelled the province’s economic growth through increased demand for goods, services, and infrastructure. Punjab also has a diverse industrial sector—a key contributor to the smog. The province is home to a significant portion of Pakistan’s manufacturing industries, including textiles, chemicals, cement, food processing, and machinery. These industries, many of them again centred in cities like Lahore, Faisalabad, Sialkot, and Multan, face little to no scrutiny regarding emissions due to their large contribution to Pakistan’s export earnings. The Punjab Industrial Air Quality Regulations seek to reduce emissions from factories, but many industries still lack the technology to significantly reduce pollution. Enforcement, perhaps due to powerful stakeholders, remains a challenge. There have also been efforts to transition to cleaner technologies, but the pace of change has been slow.
Additionally, despite a push towards public transport, tree plantation, and promotion of green spaces, a growing number of motorised vehicles contribute annually to air pollution. The Punjab Environmental Protection Department (PEPD) has been working to control vehicular emissions by implementing stricter fuel standards and pushing for the adoption of more environmentally friendly vehicles. However, a lack of enforcement and incentives for electric vehicles (EVs) has limited the effectiveness of these measures. There are plans to introduce more comprehensive vehicle emission testing programmes, but issues with corruption and a lack of infrastructure have again made implementation difficult.
Year after year, we see little to no smog preparedness, resulting in a damning disregard for the respiratory and literary health of children and the immunocompromised. One would think that in a post-Covid world, the health impacts posed by the smog would hasten the government’s preparedness towards the matter. Schools are forced to move classes online—a measure only beneficial for those with access to online facilities—and students and educators are once again left scrambling due to governance failures. High levels of air pollution in Lahore alone have led to respiratory diseases, heart conditions, and increased mortality rates. Studies have shown that the city’s air pollution contributes to thousands of premature deaths annually. Children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to the effects of smog, and yet this scribe joins an increasing number of unheard voices in a governance framework unhindered by societal decay.
International pressures have perhaps forced government officials to focus only on economic prosperity while abandoning fundamental rights. Pakistan already sits on the brink of frightening climate-related vulnerabilities, and yet our esteemed lawmakers seem dedicated to ignoring the fundamental right of citizens under Article 9A of the 26th Amendment: the entitlement of every person to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. Instead of moving towards making constitutional amendments geared towards safeguarding the physical health of the populace, lawmakers are prioritising amendments facilitating their own tenures and legitimacy.
The smog has become an annual occurrence with levels worsening gradually over the past eight years. In 2017, the provincial government launched a ‘Smog-Free Cities Initiative’, the qualitative audit of which proves that such initiatives are just lip service. In these past years, environmental experts along with the Punjab Urban Unit have led and published research into smog mitigation efforts, policy think tanks have held discussions with experts on the issue, and academia circles too have led studies and published papers. Collectively, we can show nothing for these efforts. Unaccountable funds, foreign and national, are poured into think tanks and innovation labs housed in both government and private universities, but collectively, we can show nothing for it when disaster hits. It appears our most gifted minds are either speaking a language unknown to lawmakers or are entirely benefiting from disasters such as predictable smog. This much is clear: there is zero alignment and coordination between think tanks, academia, and the local government on matters of social well-being.
As many expert voices have said, this is a crisis that impacts all facets of life in Punjab—particularly the respiratory health of its populace. This is a collective crisis, and its mitigation needs to be prioritised. International support, beneficial as it may be, must be a last resort after all locally identified and implementable options have been exhausted.
In the absence of ownership, accountability, and leadership on smog mitigation, how are ordinary citizens going to find their breath?
Sarah N Ahmad
The writer has a background in Urban Design and Community Development. She works with provincial and municipal authorities on urban policy, civic engagement and governance. She can be reached at sn.ahmad86@gmail.com