Mounting economic costs of India’s killer smog

By AFP
November 23, 2024

New Delhi is choked every year in noxious smog that authorities appear powerless to bring under control - Copyright AFP Money SHARMA

Arunabh SAIKIA

Noxious smog smothering the plains of north India is not only choking the lungs of residents and killing millions, but also slowing the country’s economic growth.

India’s capital New Delhi frequently ranks among the world’s most polluted cities. Each winter, vehicle and factory emissions couple with farm fires from surrounding states to blanket the city in a dystopian haze.

Acrid smog this month contains more than 50 times the World Health Organization recommended limit of fine particulate matter — dangerous cancer-causing microparticles known as PM2.5 pollutants, that enter the bloodstream through the lungs.

Experts say India’s worsening air pollution is having a ruinous impact on its economy — with one study estimating losses to the tune of $95 billion annually, or roughly three percent of the country’s GDP.

The true extent of the economic price India is paying could be even greater.

“The externality costs are huge and you can’t assign a value to it,” said Vibhuti Garg, of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

Bhargav Krishna of the Delhi-based research collective Sustainable Futures Collaborative said “costs add up in every phase”.

“From missing a day at work to developing chronic illness, the health costs associated with that, to premature death and the impact that has on the family of the person,” Krishna told AFP.



– ‘Health and wealth hazard’-



Still, several studies have tried to quantify the damage.

One by the global consultancy firm Dalberg concluded that in 2019, air pollution cost Indian businesses $95 billion due to “reduced productivity, work absences and premature death”.

The amount is nearly three percent of India’s budget, and roughly twice its annual public health expenditure.

“India lost 3.8 billion working days in 2019, costing $44 billion to air pollution caused by deaths,” according to the study which calculated that toxic air “contributes to 18 percent of all deaths in India”.

Pollution has also had a debilitating impact on the consumer economy because of direct health-related eventualities, the study said, reducing footfall and causing annual losses of $22 billion.

The numbers are even more staggering for Delhi, the epicentre of the crisis, with the capital province losing as much as six percent of its GDP annually to air pollution.

Restaurateur Sandeep Anand Goyle called the smog a “health and wealth hazard”.

“People who are health conscious avoid stepping out so we suffer,” said Goyle, who heads the Delhi chapter of the National Restaurant Association of India.

Tourism has also been impacted, as the smog season coincides with the period when foreigners traditionally visit northern India — too hot for many during the blisteringly hot summers.

“The smog is giving a bad name to India’s image,” said Rajiv Mehra of the Indian Association of Tour Operators.

Delhi faces an average 275 days of unhealthy air a year, according to monitors.

– ‘Premature deaths’ –

Piecemeal initiatives by the government — — that critics call half-hearted — have failed to adequately address the problem.

Academic research indicates that its detrimental impact on the Indian economy is adding up.

A 2023 World Bank paper said that air pollution’s “micro-level” impacts on the economy translate to “macro-level effects that can be observed in year-to-year changes in GDP”.

The paper estimates that India’s GDP would have been 4.5 percent higher at the end of 2023, had the country managed to curb pollution by half in the previous 25 years.

Another study published in the Lancet health journal on the direct health impacts of air pollution in 2019 estimated an annual GDP deceleration of 1.36 percent due to “lost output from premature deaths and morbidity”.

Desperate emergency curbs — such as shuttering schools to reduce traffic emissions as well as banning construction — come with their own economic costs.

“Stopping work for weeks on end every winter makes our schedules go awry, and we end up overshooting budgets,” said Sanjeev Bansal, the chairman of the Delhi unit of the Builders Association of India.

Pollution’s impact on the Indian economy is likely to get worse if action is not taken.

With India’s median age expected to rise to 32 by 2030, the Dalberg study predicts that “susceptibility to air pollution will increase, as will the impact on mortality”.

Why is it still so hard to breathe in India and Pakistan?

The world’s worst air pollution is getting worse, but there are concrete ways to fix it.


by Umair Irfan

Nov 22, 2024

VOX

Commuters step out in a foggy winter morning amid rising air pollution, on November 19, 2024 on the outskirts of Delhi in India. 

Sunil Ghosh/Hindustan Times via Getty Images

India and Pakistan are losing ground to a common deadly enemy. Vast clouds of dense, toxic smog have once again shrouded metropolises in South Asia. Air pollution regularly spikes in November in the subcontinent, but this year’s dirty air has still been breathtaking in its scale and severity. The gray, smoky pollution is even visible to satellites, and it’s fueling a public health crisis.


Last week, officials in the Punjab province in Pakistan imposed lockdowns on the cities of Multan, population 2.1 million, and Lahore, population 13.7 million, after reaching record-high pollution levels. “Smog is currently a national disaster,” senior Punjab provincial minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said during a press conference last week. Schools shut down, restaurants closed, construction halted, highways sat empty, and medical staff were recalled to hospitals and clinics.

Across the border in India, the 33 million residents of Delhi this week are breathing air pollution that’s 50 times higher than the safe limit outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO). The choking haze caused 15 aircraft to divert to nearby airports and caused hundreds of delays. Students and workers were told to stay home.

Despite all the disruption, air pollution continues to spike year after year after year.

Why? The dirty air arises from a confluence of human and natural factors. Construction, cooking fires, brick kilns, vehicles, and burning leftovers from crop harvests are all feeding into the toxic clouds. The Himalaya and Hindu Kush mountains to the north of lower-lying areas like Lahore and Delhi hold the smog in place. In the winter, the region experiences thermal inversions, where a layer of warm air pushes down on cool winter air, holding the pollution closer to the ground.

As populations grow in South Asia, so will the need for food, energy, housing, and transportation. Without a course correction, that will mean even more pollution. Yet history shows that air pollution is a solvable problem. Cities like Los Angeles and Beijing that were once notorious for dirty air have managed to clean it up. The process took years, drawing on economic development and new technologies. But it also required good governance and incentives to cut pollution, something local officials in India and Pakistan have already demonstrated can clear the air. The task now is to scale it up to higher levels of government.

We’re still not getting the full picture of the dangers of air pollution

There’s no shortage of science showing how terrible air pollution is for you. It aggravates asthma, worsens heart disease, triggers inflammation, and increases infection risk. It hampers brain development in children and can contribute to dementia in adults.

On average, air pollution has reduced life expectancies around the world by 2.3 years, more than tobacco. It contributes to almost 7 million deaths per year, according to WHO, about one in nine deaths annually. It sucks trillions of dollars out of the global economy.

The toll is especially acute in South Asia. Air pollution drains 3.9 years of life in Pakistan. In India, it steals 5.3 years. For workers who spend their days outdoors — delivery drivers, construction crews, farm laborers — the damage is even higher. Many residents report constant fevers, coughs, and headaches.

Despite the well-known dangers and the mounting threat, it remains a persistent problem.

Part of the challenge of improving air quality is that air pollution isn’t just one thing; it’s a combination of hazardous chemicals and particles that arise in teeming metropolises in developing countries.

One of the most popular metrics around the world for tracking pollution is the Air Quality Index, developed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The index is not a measurement of any one pollutant, but rather the risk from a combination of pollutants based on US air quality standards. The main villains are ground-level ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particles. The particles are subcategorized into those smaller than 10 microns (PM10) and smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5). (Earlier this year, the EPA modified the way it calculates the AQI, so numbers from this year are not an apples-to-apples comparison to levels from previous years.) The tiny particles are pernicious because they penetrate deep into the lungs and trigger breathing problems.

Related:The Air Quality Index and how to use it, explained

An AQI below 50 is considered safe to breathe. Above 200, the air is considered a health threat for everyone. At 300, it’s an emergency. In Delhi, the AQI this week reached 1,185. Lahore reached 1,900 this month. If a person breathes this air for over 24 hours, the exposure is roughly equivalent to smoking 90 cigarettes in a day.

Lahore, Pakistan, on a day when the air quality index was 37 (left) and on a day when the air quality index was 496 (right). Dawar Hameed Butt/Nature


However, air pollution poses a threat long before it’s visible. “Your eye is not a good detector of air pollution in general,” said Christi Chester Schroeder, the air quality science manager at IQAir, a company that builds air quality monitoring instruments and collects pollution data. “The pollutant that you have to be really careful about in terms of not being able to see it but experiencing it is ozone. Ozone levels can be extremely high on sunny days.”



IQAir has a network of air quality sensors across South Asia, including regions like Lahore and Delhi. The company tracks pollution in real time using its own sensors as well as monitors bought by schools, businesses, and ordinary people. Their professional-grade air monitors can cost more than $20,000 but they also sell consumer air quality trackers that cost $300. Both sources help paint a picture of pollution.


Many schools and businesses across South Asia have installed their own pollution monitors. The US maintains its own air quality instruments at its consulates and embassies in India and Pakistan as well.


Schroeder noted however that IQAir’s instruments are geared toward monitoring particles like PM2.5 and don’t easily allow a user to make inferences about concentrations of other pollutants like sulfur oxides and where they’re coming from. “When you’re looking at places that have a really big mixture of sources — like you have a mixture of transportation and fires and climate inversion conditions — then it gets to be much murkier and you can’t really sort of pull it apart that way,” Schroeder said.

Politics lies at the core of the air pollution problem


Air quality monitors in India and Pakistan show that air pollution can vary over short distances — between neighborhoods or even street by street — and that it can change rapidly through the day. Nearby bus terminals, power plants, or cooking fires contribute a lot to local pollution, but without tracking systems in the vicinity, it can be hard to realize how bad the situation has become.

“I think the most surprising, interesting, and scary thing, honestly, is seeing the levels of pollution in areas that haven’t been monitored before,” Schroeder said.


Another complication is that people also experience pollution far away from where it’s produced. “This automatically creates a big governance challenge because the administrator who is responsible for providing you clean air in your jurisdiction is not actually the administrator who is governing over the polluting action,” said Saad Gulzar, an assistant professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University.


Take crop stubble burning, which accounts for up to 60 percent of the air pollution in the region this time of year. In late fall, farmers in northern India and Pakistan harvest rice and plant wheat. With little time between the reaping and sowing, the fastest and cheapest way for many farmers to clear their fields of leftover stems, leaves, and roots is to burn it. The resulting smoke then wafts from rural areas into urban centers.


The challenge is that farmers and urbanites are different political constituencies, and it’s hard to demand concessions from the former to benefit the latter. It has led to bitter political fights in both countries and between them. Farmers also point out that the reason they have so little time between crops is because of water conservation laws: To cope with groundwater depletion, officials in India imposed regulations to limit rice planting until after monsoon rains arrive in the early summer to top up reservoirs. Delaying planting means delaying harvest, hence the rush to clear their fields.

Related:The law that’s helping fuel Delhi’s deadly air pollution


Both India and Pakistan have even gone as far as to arrest farmers who burn crop stubble, but there are millions of farmers spread out over a vast area, stretching enforcement thin. However, local efforts to control smoke from crop burning have proven effective when local officials are motivated to act.


Gulzar co-authored a study published in October in the journal Nature, looking at air pollution and its impacts across India and Pakistan. Examining satellite data and health records over the past decade, the paper found that who is in charge of a jurisdiction plays a key role in air pollution — and could also be the key to solving it.


When a district is likely to experience pollution from a fire within its own boundaries, bureaucrats and local officials take more aggressive action to mitigate it, whether that’s paying farmers not to burn stubble, providing them with tools to clear fields without fires, or threatening them with fines and arrest. That led fires within a district to drop by 14.5 percent and future burning to decline by 13 percent. These air pollution reductions led to measurable drops in childhood mortality. On the other hand, if the wind is poised to push pollution from crop burning over an adjacent district, fires increase by 15 percent.

Traders and customers gathered at a wholesale fish market engulfed in smog in Lahore, Pakistan, on November 21, 2024.

 Arif Ali/AFP via Getty Images


The results show that simply motivating officials to act at local, regional, and national levels is a key step in reducing air pollution and that progress can begin right away.

But further air quality improvements will require a transition toward cleaner energy. Besides crop burning, the other major source of air pollution across India and Pakistan is fossil fuel combustion, whether that’s coal in furnaces, gas in factories, or diesel in trucks. These fuels also contribute to climate change, which is already contributing to devastating heat waves and flooding from torrential monsoons in the region. Both countries have made major investments in renewable energy, but they are also poised to burn more coal to feed their growing economies.

At the COP29 climate change conference this week in Baku, Azerbaijan, India is asking wealthier nations to contribute more money to finance clean energy within its borders and to share technologies that will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance air quality.

Solving the air pollution crisis in India and Pakistan will take years, and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. But there are lifesaving measures both countries can take now.

 

The Possible Beginning of The End

by Frank Scott / November 22nd, 2024

Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the only thing intellectually lower than Trump is his opposition, he was re-elected by a more solid margin than last time. After one of the dumbest and most slanted hit jobs on American consciousness, with tens of thousands of photos of Harris beaming as in contemplation of dinner dishes filled with food instead of animal waste, and Trump in an equal number looking as though he has not had a comfortable bowel movement in thirty or forty years, the public was expected to react as their keepers, in their incredibly bigoted stupidity, expected. The most dreadful outcome for the owners and operators of market democracy is that actual working people may be closer to some power than ever since the new deal, though one should hardly expect anything nearly that good since there were socialists and communists in the government back in those days and now we’re lucky to have a handful of “progressive” reps left of the American Nazi party. At least slightly.

As further proof of complete failure for privileged class expressions of our great democracy Trump was even outspent in the electoral market which is where Americans shop for the illusion of some constitutional or biblical expression of a supposed gift to the world brought by Europeans who savagely attacked indigenous people here hundreds of years ago and transformed earth into real estate while introducing freedom and other good stuff even before Israelis thought of it hundreds of years later in Palestine. Rejoice, be glad and continue taking drugs, spending trillions to brutalize humanity and destroy nature while the ruling class continues teaching us that swallowing sewage is a form of healthy dining and having our heads filled with mental puss makes us worthy of therapy.

While the USA sinks more deeply in a global political economic cesspool and the rest of the world rises and moves in the direction of a global and cooperative real democracy, a relative handful of capitalist commissars here and in colonial corporations desperately try to hang on to power and in so doing threaten the entire human race and not just their tiny if incredibly wealthy ruling class and are bringing us closer to ruin. The professional servant class which has served as supporting capital in its fading time now assumes even more desperate behavior and the media air contaminated by consciousness controllers becoming more dimwitted and murderous with each passing second threaten to speed up messages of blatant idiocy that may serve to make Trump look less ignorant if that is possible.

Those who speak of losing something that has never existed since euros got here – democracy – strengthen the foolish idea that voting assures the existence of majority rule no matter the fact that in America and as in most other market electoral arenas those with the most heavily financed products/candidates usually win though this case was a slight blip on the blurred screen of a degenerate form of democracy to make the one by which Nazis took power in Germany look close to ideal. While a popular comic-book formed conception might be that evil Germans took control of the country by marching in with guns and taking over that is fiction. They were elected to power in a more democratic, though hardly ideal, form of elections in which achieving a minority vote got you at least some power while here in narcoleptic-inspired America less than 50 percent gets you booted out with nothing.

But lest we become more deeply submerged in oceans of blather about fascism and not notice that millions of us live under it without it being given that name we might consider that millions of Americans are poor, without health care and hundreds of thousands of us have no place to live. This while we spend trillions on war and mass murder and tens of billions on the health and well being of our pets with many of us sleeping in their warm embrace due to lack of any human intimacy in our lives. Meanwhile Trump and many of his innocent supporters speak of Democratic Party members as Marxists thereby proving that he and they have no idea of Grouch’s thoughts on humor let alone Karl’s on political economics. But whether motivated by biblical tales of chosen people and virgin births or modern and less believable nonsense about celebrities and other influencers who make Trump seem almost thoughtful by comparison, news from the material world is that capitalist economics are destroying nature in all its forms and while the obliteration of air, water and other stuff in existence from long before we came along, the threat of nuclear destruction of all of us all at once grows with each new expression of mindless private profit seeking with more murderous policies and weapons that bring billions of dollars to some while offering to destroy billions of lives among the enormous majority of humanity made to absorb the murderous bill until such time as we create real global democracy and end the system before it destroys all of us.

Most recently the outgoing president, who has long left any hint of intelligence for the dung heap, warmly offered Ukraine the use of weapons to attack Russia and now, as often, we have to rely on Putin’s humanity and intelligence not to unleash nuclear weapons on the USA when such weapons are used on Russia. But, of course, good and decent Americans are reduced to claiming Putin is horny for world domination while the U.S. has hundreds of military bases surrounding Russia, China and much of the world but these are all about democracy and peace. Of course, and rapists are only concerned that their victims not be sexually frustrated. Trump’s election may well be another sign of the end of American imperial domination of the planet and whether his blatant ignorance and honesty assure positive or negative result, America and the planet will possibly benefit much more than great masses of us were lead to believe.

Meanwhile the usual suspects will fill the air with mental smog accusing any and all of fascism, genocide and even newer synonyms for whatever has been going on before our eyes while they learned memes and performed mimes and qualified as capital’s professional class of well paid servants whose checks may begin bouncing sooner than 2025 gets old.

Frank Scott writes political commentary which appears online at the blog Legalienate. Read other articles by Frank.

PAKISTAN

Delivering clean air

Ali Tauqeer Sheikh 

November 21, 2024 
DAWN

IN recent days, we saw economic and social life in almost all of Punjab and KP come to a standstill. The air quality in Punjab, the most populous and most urbanised province of the country and parts of KP endowed with pristine mountains has become a more serious climate crisis than the magnitude of the 2022 floods.

With almost 100 million people inhaling polluted air — 10 times more toxic than WHO standards — the scale of this crisis has become a health emergency. The rain will provide temporary respite as it will help improve visibility but not permanently bring pollution levels down to healthy standards.

The problem has not emerged suddenly, nor can it be resolved quickly. How can Pakistan reverse the rapidly deteriorating situation? We need to set realistic targets for 2047 to commemorate our first 100 years as a nation.

The brewing challenge was recognised in 2014, by a World Bank-compiled study Air Quality in Pakistan: A Review of the Evidence, revealing that Pakistan’s urban air pollution ranked among the worst globally, and significantly exceeded international limits.

The report showed that air pollution contributed to approximately 235,000 premature deaths and over 80,000 hospital admissions annually. The air quality reduced life expectancy by up to 2.7 years across Pakistan. It seems that the report in 2014 was predicting the newspaper headlines of November 2024.

The problem of pollution has not emerged suddenly, nor can it be resolved quickly.

The warnings were ignored by policymakers, even though the study also pointed out that air pollution was costing up to 6.5 per cent of GDP annually. Healthcare expenditures amount to $47.7 billion (about 5.8pc of GDP), while lost labour output reaches $6.6bn. The cost of environmental degradation at the time was estimated at Rs365bn annually.

Given the gravity of the challenge, the study set a target of 70pc reduction in air pollutants by 2030 and 81pc by 2040. These goals required coordinated interventions across transportation, industry, agriculture, and waste management sectors, supported by strengthened institutional capacity and regulatory frameworks.

The Lahore High Court’s Smog Commission (2017) and the Judicial Water & Environment Commission (2019), could not persuade the provincial government to bring the issue to the forefront.

Ironically, it was only in March last year that the National Clean Air Policy was approved. Within a month, it was followed by the Punjab’s Clean Air Plan. Both NCAP and PCAP have shifted the signposts: achieving a 38pc reduction in PM2.5 emissions by 2030, compared to baseline levels, and to 81pc by 2040. In reality, a credible scientific baseline still does not exist. The policies’ effectiveness is further compromised by limited air quality monitoring infrastructure. While Punjab has begun to install such infrastructure, Balochistan, KP, Sindh, and Gilgit-Baltistan lack monitoring networks entirely.

Several complex factors drive this crisis. Some developing countries have used the following five framework principles to orient their policy on clean air:

First: adaptation and mitigation are intrinsically linked. We need to bust the myth that as a developing country, emissions reduction or mitigation is not our priority, and only adaptation is. The present air pollution crisis is proof that it is perilous for Pakistan to ignore mitigation measures.

Second: policies are for implementation. Starting with the National Environment Policy (2005), a stack of policies have highlighted the need for ambient air quality. Despite several trillion rupees worth of PSDP, air quality hardly received any investments.

Further, the policies beg implementation, not a downward revision of targets. NCAP and PCAP have both relaxed air quality parameters that fall behind the WHO’s 2021 guidelines. No reasons are offered for lowering standards. By reverting to pre-2021 WHO interim targets, Pakistan has effectively loosened the existing National Environmental Quality Standards from 2013. Some experts believe that it will potentially raise PM2.5 levels by more than 50pc.

Regrettably, some functionaries are now also arguing for reducing the ambitions of Nationally Determined Contributions (2021). Instead of assessing the barriers for its slow implementation, an important thought leader has recently stated that NDC 2.0 has “unrealistically high ambition”. In reality, the NDCs still lack an implementation plan, costing, or a secretariat to monitor its progress. Far from scaling down its sovereign commitments, Pakistan needs to scale up climate action for a convincing narrative for greater access to climate finance.

Third: align with global trends. The present crisis provides Pakistan an opportunity to join the global drive for decarbonisation, now gaining new momentum after Donald Trump’s announcement of exiting the Paris Agreement. This is the right time for Pakistan to commit to net zero. At this time, about 75pc of states have set net-zero targets accounting for 98pc of global GDP and 88pc of greenhouse gas emissions. The list includes our neighbours Bangladesh, China, India and the Maldives. This decision can serve as a compass for the direction of our journey.

Fourth: decentralised clean air plans and engaging stakeholders. Technical capacities as well as willingness exists in academia, think tanks, start-ups, and the private sector to engage in data generation, map emissions hotspots, deliver research analytics and carry out advocacy campaigns. This is particularly important as the data generated by the government is expensive, delayed, and unusable. The Punjab government can give legitimacy to independent datasets and spearhead their environmental data generation.

Fifth: formally engage with the government of Indian Punjab. Air quality is a transboundary issue, even if crop-burning is a small contributory factor. A dialogue is needed for cleaner air on both sides of the border, and for early closure of two coal-fired power plants closer to the border: Guru Hargobind Thermal Plant and Guru Gobind Singh Super Thermal Power Plant. The agenda and purpose, however, has to be collaborative rather than accusatory.

Finally, the 18th Amendment has not clearly delineated all environmental issues. The provinces can agree with the federal government to firewall Rs1.28tr to be collected as petroleum levy for urban transportation, pre-agree on the quality of imported fuel and vehicles, agree on subsidies and incentives for energy transition for two and three-wheelers away from combustion engines, and fast-track the phasing out of rickshaws. Afterall, 2047 is only 23 years away.

The writer is an Islamabad-based climate change and sustainable development expert.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2024

Delhi's 'alarming' air quality crisis persisting as city is named India's dirtiest

People drive amid heavy smog on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, on Saturday. A weeks-long air quality crisis in northern India is being driven by industrial emissions, vehicular pollution and stubble burning, scientists say. File Photo by Rajat Gupta/EPA-EFE

Nov. 21 (UPI) -- Delhi was listed as India's most polluted city Thursday as a weeks-long air quality crisis gripping northern India has shown few signs of letting up.

An air quality analysis report by Respirer Living Sciences showed levels of particulate matter, known as PM2.5, were high enough to rank Delhi last among the 281 Indian cities monitored.

The study, called Early Winter Trends Across Indian Cities, shows that 149 out of the 281 cities monitored were in the poor category or worse, and more than half of Indian cities monitored had poor air quality in the first two weeks of November as winter sets in.

"Delhi recorded an alarming PM2.5 average of 243.3 µg/m³, reflecting a 19.5% increase in only two weeks," the study said. "Other northern cities, including those in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab, also reported high pollution levels, driven by industrial emissions, vehicular pollution, and stubble burning."

Delhi's air quality took an especially bad turn this week, officials said. They attribute the spike in dangerous air to a combination of cooler air and industrial pollution as the temperature drops, creating hazardous environmental conditions. They also cite lower wind speeds and vehicle emissions.

Despite being extremely unhealthy, India's air quality actually improved from "severe" to "very poor" over a five-day span, according to a real-time monitor.

Scientists called for a multi-front approach to taking on air pollution in India's dirtiest and most polluted cities, including stricter emission restrictions, finding alternatives to stubble burning, expanding air quality monitoring infrastructure, and working with other countries to address cross-border air pollution.

"Addressing air pollution requires a coordinated effort, combining stricter emissions norms, innovative alternatives to stubble burning, and better air quality monitoring. Clean air is achievable if we act decisively now," Respirer Living Sciences founder Ronak Sutaria said in a statement.

PM 2.5 particles can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, posing significant health risks, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

S.Africa offers a lesson on how not to shut down a coal plant


By AFP
November 18, 2024

Before it turned off the switches in October 2022, the plant fed 121 megawatts into South Africa's grid - Copyright AFP PAUL BOTES

Zama LUTHULI

The cold corridors of South Africa’s once-mighty Komati coal-fired power plant have been quiet since its shutdown in 2022 in what was trumpeted as a pioneering project in the world’s transition to green energy.

Two years later, plans to repurpose the country’s oldest coal power plant have amounted to little in a process that offers caution and lessons for countries intending to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels and switch to renewables.

Jobs have been lost and construction for wind and solar energy generation has yet to start, with only a few small green projects under way.

“We cannot construct anything. We cannot remove anything from the site,” acting general manager Theven Pillay told AFP at the 63-year-old plant embedded in the coal belt in Mpumalanga province, where the air hangs thick with smog.

Poor planning and delays in paperwork to authorise the full decommissioning of the plant have been the main culprits for the standstill, he said. “We should have done things earlier. So we would consider it is not a success.”

Before it turned off the switches in October 2022, the plant fed 121 megawatts into South Africa’s chronically undersupplied and erratic electricity grid.

The transition plan — which won $497 million in funding from the World Bank — envisions the generation of 150 megawatts via solar and 70 megawatts from wind, with capacity for 150 megawatts of battery storage.

Workers are to be reskilled and the plant’s infrastructure, including its massive cooling towers, repurposed.

But much of this is still a long way off. “They effectively just shut down the coal plant and left the people to deal with the outcomes,” said deputy energy and electricity minister Samantha Graham.



– Disgruntled –



Coal provides 80 percent of South Africa’s power and the country is among the world’s top 12 largest greenhouse gas emitters. Coal is also a bedrock of its economy, employing around 90,000 people.

South Africa was the first country in the world to form a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) with international funders to move off dirty power generation, already receiving $13.6 billion in total in grants and loans, Neil Cole of the JETP presidential committee told AFP.

Komati is the first coal plant scheduled for decommissioning, with five of the remaining 14 ones meant to follow by 2030.

It had directly employed 393 people, the state energy firm Eskom that owns the plant told AFP. Only 162 remain on site as others volunteered for transfer or accepted payouts.

The plant had been the main provider of employment in the small town, where the quiet streets are pitted with chunks of coal. Today, several houses are vacant as workers from other provinces headed home after losing their jobs.

“Our jobs ending traumatised us a lot as a community,” said Sizwe Shandu, 35, who had been contracted as a boilermaker at the plant since 2008.

The shutdown had been unexpected and left his family scrambling to make ends meet, he said. With South Africa’s unemployment rate topping 32 percent, Shandu now relies on government social grants to buy food and electricity.

Pillay admitted that many people in the town of Komati had a “disgruntled view” of the transition. One of the mistakes was that coal jobs were closed before new jobs were created, he said. People from the town did not always have the skills required for the emerging jobs.

Eskom has said it plans to eventually create 363 permanent jobs and 2,733 temporary jobs at Komati.

One of the green projects under way combines raising fish alongside vegetable patches supported by solar panels.

Seven people, from a planned 21, have been trained to work on the aquaponics scheme, including Bheki Nkabinde, 37.

“Eskom has helped me big time in terms of getting this opportunity because now I’ve got an income, I can be able to support my family,” he told AFP, as he walked among his spinach, tomatoes, parsley and spring onions.

The facility is also turning invasive plants into pellets that are an alternative fuel to coal and assembling mobile micro power grids fixed to containers. A coal milling workshop has been turned into a welding training room.

– Mistakes and lessons –

The missteps at Komati are lessons for other coal-fired power plants marked for shutdown, Pillay said. For example, some now plan to start up green energy projects parallel to the phasing out of fumes.

But the country is “not going to be pushed into making a decision around how quickly or how slowly we do the Just Energy Transition based on international expectations”, said Graham.

South Africa has seven percent renewable energy in its mix, up from one percent a decade ago, she said. And it will continue mining and exporting coal, with Eskom estimating that there are almost 200 years of supply still in the ground.

The goal is to have a “good energy mix that’s sustainable and stable”, Graham said.

Since South Africa’s JETP was announced, Indonesia, Vietnam and Senegal have struck similar deals, but there has been little progress towards actually closing coal plants under the mechanism.

Among the criticisms is that it offers largely market-rate lending terms, raising the threat of debt repayment problems for recipients.

Stricter lockdown in big cities as Punjab declares smog emergency

Zulqernain Tahir 

November 16, 2024

DAWN

A street is shrouded in smog amid air pollution, during a morning in Multan on November 15. — Reuters

LAHORE: Hundreds of people offer Namaz-i-Istisqa (prayers for rain) for some respite from the smog afflicting the Punjab province, at Badshahi Mosque on Friday. A spokesperson for the provincial environment department attributed this year’s severe pollution to a lack of rain in September and October.—PPI


• Schools closed for another 10 days across the province
• Marriyum says arrangements made in hospitals to treat patients
• Govt holds ‘successful’ cloud seeding trial in Jhelum, Gujar Khan


LAHORE: The Punjab government has declared an emergency in Lahore and Multan, where a “complete lockdown” will be imposed from Fridays to Sundays due to the intensity of smog.

Dense smog, caused by toxic pollutants, has engulfed several cities in Punjab over the past few weeks, with Lahore and Multan being the worst hit. The AQI reading in Multan has already crossed 2,000 twice, setting a new record for air pollution.

“We are declaring a health emergency in Lahore and Multan,” provincial minister Marriyum Aurangzeb told a press conference on Friday.

The minister said a complete lockdown will be enforced on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays in both cities.

Construction activities in Lahore and Multan have also been suspended for 10 days, and vehicles carrying construction materials will be stopped at the entry points of the cities.

Ms Aurangzeb said the closure of schools has been extended while colleges and universities will hold online classes in Lahore and Multan.

Private and government offices would operate with 50 per cent of staff working from home, while restaurants would operate till 4pm with takeaway services allowed till 8pm.

“We are not imposing restrictions on weddings during this smog season but are preparing for next year,” she said, adding that citizens have been advised to avoid outdoor events.

Late, on Friday, the provincial Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) notified these restrictions.

It said the smog situation is “likely to prevail for a few weeks”; hence, there was a need to “reduce the number of vehicles on roads and restrict construction activities”.

Schools across Punjab, which are already closed, would remain shut till Nov 24, according to the EPA notification.

There will be a complete ban on the entry of heavy transport vehicles in Lahore and Multan.

The vehicles carrying fuel, medicines and food supplies; buses with official certification; ambulances; fire brigades; and vehicles of Rescue 1122 and police will be exempt from the ban.

The lockdown restrictions will not apply to pharmacies, medical facilities, petrol pumps, oil depots, tandoors, flour mills, dairy shops, call centres, postal services and utility companies.

Health crisis

The minister admitted that smog has resulted in a sharp uptick in the number of patients with respiratory illnesses.

The timing of the outpatient department (OPD) has been extended till 8pm in hospitals where essential medicines for respiratory illnesses have also been supplied, the minister said.

Ambulances have been equipped with breathing apparatus and hospital staff leaves have been cancelled. Citizens are advised to wear masks and avoid unnecessary travel on motorcycles.

According to the EPA notification, special counters for smog-related diseases will be established in all government and private hospitals.

Rescue 1122 will “prioritise the calls related to smog diseases” while the health department will ensure an adequate supply of medicines to treat respiratory and other smog-related diseases

10-year policy

While calling smog a “health crisis”, she said the pollution is now affecting other districts in Punjab.

The minister claimed that a 10-year policy had been formulated and government departments have been given specific targets to combat this crisis.

“Twelve AQI calculators have been installed in Lahore, and 50 more will be deployed across Punjab this year,” she added.

The minister lamented Lahore has only 3pc green cover compared to the required 36pc. “The government plans to launch a citywide green plantation drive.”

She said smog would not disappear in six months or a year, and the government is using both short- and long-term strategies to address the issue.

The minister, once again, reiterated that smog was cross-border and urged Pakistan and India jointly “address this environmental crisis, which concerns lives and health”.

The minister said she would like to brief the Lahore High Court on the policy to curb smog, which, she said, was caused by “transport, agriculture, energy, our habits, our behaviour and our actions towards nature”.

She said a number of measures have already been taken to curb smog.

For the first time, the agriculture department has provided 1,000 super seeders to farmers to dispose of their stubble instead of burning it.

Around 800 brick kilns have been demolished, and efforts to expand Lahore’s forest cover are ongoing, she added.

Three vehicle fitness certification stations have been established at Kala Shah Kaku and Thokar Niaz Baig, and smoke detectors have been provided to traffic police to identify vehicles with high emissions.

Cloud seeding

On Friday, the Punjab government also held a successful trial of artificial rain using local technology.

“The cloud seeding experiment conducted in Jhelum, Chakwal, Talagang, and Gujar Khan resulted in rainfall in Jhelum and Gujar Khan on Friday,” the Meteorological Department confirmed.

The experiment was conducted at 2pm, and “within hours, it [rained] in Jhelum and Gujar Khan”.

“There is also a strong likelihood of rainfall in Lahore after this experiment. The artificial rainfall will significantly help reduce smog,” the Met Department said.

The experiment was done in collaboration with Army Aviation, Punjab EPA and Suparco, as per the officials.Ms Aurangzeb and CM Sharif have congratulated all institutions and scientific experts involved in the cloud seeding experiment.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2024

Breathless Punjab

DAWN
Editorial 

Published November 16, 2024 

PUNJAB’s smog crisis has effectively spiralled out of control, with air quality readings shattering all past records: Multan’s AQI surpassed 2,000 recently and Lahore’s is consistently exceeding the 1,100 mark. While the two cities have now been put under a nine-day lockdown, such high levels of air pollution have taken a terrible toll on the population. Nearly 2m citizens sought medical attention for respiratory ailments in just 30 days. Hospitals are reporting patients of asthma, conjunctivitis and heart disease in overwhelming numbers. While the provincial government is running helter-skelter closing schools, banning recreational activities and demolishing non-compliant brick kilns, these steps amount to little more than crisis management. The distribution of super-seeders and installation of emission control systems, though welcome, cannot mask the absence of deep reform. It is not with seasonal firefighting that Punjab can deal with this recurrent problem. It must address primary pollution sources: a rickety transport infrastructure, industrial emissions and urban sprawl.

Across the border, Delhi faces a similar crisis, with schools shutting down and flights disrupted. In Pakistan, the Punjab information minister says that while 70pc of Lahore’s smog is generated locally, around 30pc wafts in from India. This makes bilateral cooperation essential. In addition, the Lahore High Court’s call for a decade-long policy framework merits attention. With 70-80pc of environmental pollution stemming from transport emissions, particularly substandard fuel, any meaningful solution must prioritise public transport and stricter emission standards. The government’s plan to introduce electric buses by June 2025 is promising but insufficient. The path forward requires painful but necessary reforms: relocating industries outside urban centres, enforcing Euro-V fuel standards, expanding green coverage beyond the current 3pc in Lahore, and creating air quality monitoring networks. While these may seem economically burdensome, the cost pales in comparison to the rapidly rising healthcare costs and the undeniable loss of productivity. For citizens caught between unaffordable air purifiers and deteriorating health, the government must provide relief through subsidised protective gear, such as N95 masks, and expanded healthcare access. However, the public too must recognise their role in this crisis. It must adopt greener lifestyles and reduce personal emissions. Ultimately, tackling smog requires unwavering political will, regional diplomacy, public participation, and a rethink of our urban development.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2024

Pakistan’s policies hazy as it fights smog


By AFP
November 14, 2024


Pakistan's Punjab region is bearing the brunt of the country's struggles with record-breaking smog - Copyright AFP Arif ALI

Muhammed SOHAIL ABBAS with Shrouq TARIQ in Islamabad

From banning tuk-tuks and barbecues to demolishing old brick kilns, Pakistan’s government is pushing a series of measures to fight record-breaking smog.

But environmental activists and experts warn that the efforts hardly begin to fix a problem that leaves the country choking every winter, with Punjab, a region of almost 130 million people bordering India, bearing the brunt of it.

A mix of low-grade fuel emissions from factories and vehicles, exacerbated by agricultural stubble burning, blanket the city each winter, trapped by cooler temperatures and slow-moving winds.

The UN food agency FAO pinpoints transport as the main source of air pollutant emissions, followed by industry and agriculture.

Punjab minister Marriyum Aurangzeb, who has declared a “war against smog”, has deployed police to fine farmers who use the slash-and-burn technique.

Officials are also targeting companies that fail to comply with orders to modernise their infrastructure.

“It is a good starting point”, the Pakistan Air Quality Experts (PAQx) group, a coalition of 27 professionals spanning public health, environmental science, law, and economics, wrote in a letter to the government.

But more urgent action was necessary against the worst polluters, the group said, suggesting immediate curbs on heavy vehicles circulating at certain hours or a nation-wide shutdown of all brick kilns, old and new.

Ahmad Rafay Alam, one of Pakistan’s leading environment lawyers, said the government has “not understood the problem completely”.

“It should (improve the quality of) petrol, move to renewables, improve the industry, otherwise, we’re just showing something for the sake of showing it,” he said.



– Cost hurdle –



More than 24 million vehicles ply the streets in Punjab, a province served by a weak public transportation infrastructure.

“We need to upgrade the vehicle fleet,” Alam said.

But many Pakistanis are also unable to afford more modern and less-polluting options in a country where the World Bank reports 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.

In the brick-making industry, one of Pakistan’s biggest sectors, employers and employees have shown incomprehension at the government’s actions.

Officials have shut down 700 of the country’s 25,000 brick kilns because they have not switched to more energy-efficient versions touted to reduce air particle output.

Employer Sajid Ali Shah told AFP that the government “replaced the old technology that we worked with for over 50 years with a new one, but many do not even know how to use the new technology”.

Worker Muhammad Imran, 40, said the old kilns “used to cost us almost $1000, the new one is almost $6000”.

A similar picture emerged in the farming sector.

Officials want the agriculture sector to switch to fertilisers instead of the slash-and-burn technique, but farmers say that is too costly.

“We plough, burn and then water (the fields) for good results. There’s no other way,” Fida Hussain, a 35-year-old farmer told AFP, after he finished burning his rice fields.

Deforestation also continues to gather pace to make way for new bridges and roads.

Every year, Pakistan loses almost 27,000 hectares (270 square kilometres) of natural forest area, according to the World Bank.



– Children paying price –



With the smog far from lifting, doctors are reporting a health emergency.

Air pollution can trigger strokes, heart disease, lung cancer and other respiratory diseases, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

More than 35,000 patients have been reported in the five major public hospitals of Lahore during the past week, Pakistan’s official news agency APP reported.

Children are often hardest hit, with UNICEF noting that “prior to these record-breaking levels of air pollution, about 12 percent of deaths in children under five in Pakistan were due to air pollution”.

To limit the damage, the provincial government shut down schools and public spaces in Punjab’s major cities till 17 November, disrupting the learning of almost 16 million children.

“It’s unfortunate that the children are paying the price when it should be industry, energy production and automobile use that should be upgraded or shut down,” Alam said.

But Aurangzeb warned: “Even if we enforce our smog mitigation plan… it will not bring an overnight change”.

Primary schools empty as smog persists in Indian capital


By AFP
November 15, 2024


Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area, home to more than 30 million people, consistently tops world rankings for air pollution in winter - Copyright AFP Arun SANKAR

Residents in India’s capital New Delhi again woke under a blanket of choking smog on Friday, a day after authorities closed primary schools and imposed measures aimed at alleviating the annual crisis.

Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area, home to more than 30 million people, consistently tops world rankings for air pollution in winter.

The smog is blamed for thousands of premature deaths each year and is an annual source of misery for residents, with various piecemeal government initiatives failing to measurably address the problem.

All primary schools were shut by government order on Thursday night with young pupils — particularly vulnerable to smog-related ailments due to their age — instead moving to online lessons.

“I have an eight-year-old kid and he has been suffering from a cough the past couple of days,” Delhi resident Satraj, who did not give his surname, told AFP on the streets of the capital.

“The government did the right thing by shutting down schools.”

Thursday’s edict also banned construction work, ordered drivers of older diesel-powered vehicles to stay off the streets and directed water trucks to spray roads in a bid to clear dust particles from the air.

Delhi’s air quality nonetheless deteriorated to “hazardous” levels for the fourth consecutive day this week, according to monitoring firm IQAir.

Levels of PM2.5 pollutants — dangerous cancer-causing microparticles that enter the bloodstream through the lungs — were recorded more than 26 times above the World Health Organization’s recommended daily maximum shortly after dawn on Friday.

– Thousands of fires –

Critics have consistently said that authorities have fallen short in their duty to tackle a crisis that blights the city each year.

“We haven’t responded to the emergency with the same intensity with which we are facing this crisis,” Sunil Dahiya of New Delhi-based advocacy group Envirocatalysts told AFP.

The acrid smog over New Delhi each year is primarily blamed on stubble burning by farmers in nearby states to clear their fields for ploughing.

A report by broadcaster NDTV on Friday said that more than 7,000 individual farm fires had been recorded in Punjab state, to the capital’s north.

Emissions from industry and numerous coal-fired power stations ringing the city, along with vehicle exhaust and the burning of household waste, also play a part.

“Since we haven’t yet carried out any systemic long-term changes, like the way we commute, generate power, or manage our waste, even the curtailed emissions will be high,” Dahiya said.

Cooler temperatures and slow-moving winds worsen the situation by trapping deadly pollutants each winter.

A study in The Lancet medical journal attributed 1.67 million premature deaths to air pollution in the world’s most populous country in 2019.

Lahore’s dangerous smog: where disease and death stalk

With air quality hitting “hazardous” highs, Lahore is forced into survival mode — schools shut, hospitals overflow, and households resort to pricey air purifiers to keep the smog at bay.

Zofeen T. Ebrahim

Published November 14, 2024

 
“It’s been horrible; I’ve been sick on and off for the last 10 days,” said 29-year-old Natasha Sohail, who teaches A-Level students at three private schools in Lahore. She is asthmatic, and last week, her condition worsened with a vertigo attack and fever. “It’s criminal what is happening here,” said an incensed Sohail, referring to the “band-aid measures” taken by the Punjab government.

Lahore also has the distinction of being the world leader in the poor air quality index (AQI), with some neighbourhoods touching over 1,200 on the AQI this month. The AQI measures the level of fine particles (PM2.5), larger particles (PM10), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone (O3) in the air. An AQI of 151 to 200 is classified as “unhealthy”, 201 to 300 “very unhealthy” and more than 300 as “hazardous”.

For the past eight years, since Sohail was in college and since smog became an annual phenomenon, Sohail has relied on anti-wheezing drugs and inhalers. At home, there are four air purifiers to help her breathe cleaner air.

She’s not alone.

These two photos were taken at the same place; the clear blue sky was taken in September 2023 and the sepia skies in November 2024. Courtesy: Zaeema Naeem


“The hospitals are crowded with tens of thousands of patients suffering from respiratory and heart diseases being treated at hospitals and clinics over the last few weeks,” said Dr Ashraf Nizami, president of the Pakistan Medical Association’s Lahore chapter. “The psychological toll the poor air is taking on people remains under the radar.”

Punjab’s senior minister, Marriyum Aurangzeb, revealing the government’s anti-smog action plan, informed journalists that Lahore endured 275 days of unhealthy AQI levels over the past year, with temperatures rising by 2.3 degrees.

After Lahore’s AQI exceeded 1,000 last week, authorities closed all primary and secondary schools. Punjab’s Secretary for Environment, Raja Jahangir Anwar, warned the closure could continue if air quality doesn’t improve. “Young children are vulnerable, and we want to avoid an emergency,” he said, adding that online learning, like during the COVID pandemic, can be adopted again.

Source: Analysis by CREA. Data source for Lahore AQI is Airnow

Source: Analysis by CREA. Data source for Lahore AQI is Airnow

Source: Analysis by CREA. Data source for Lahore AQI is Airnow


Living in a world of air purifiers

Aliya Khan, 37, a mother of two boys — aged five and one, with the older one suffering from asthma — had installed four imported air purifiers in her home four years ago, each costing Rs31,000. They bought a fifth this year at Rs60,000. “It cost us a fortune, but that’s not all; the filters must be replaced every year, which costs Rs10,000 per machine,” she said.

The private school her five-year-old attends lacks air purifiers in classrooms, leaving parents with no choice but to pool together and buy one for their child’s classroom.

Khan, a development consultant, says air purifiers work best if the home is packed tightly to keep the air from outside entering. “Our windows and doors are poorly insulated and with elderly parents, domestic help and two kids — the air purifiers struggle to maintain their effectiveness.”
Smog brings business for some

Business picks up for 37-year-old Hassan Zaidi as soon as Lahore is covered in smog. He’s currently fulfilling an order for “hundreds of air purifiers” for a foreign school in Lahore.

A computer engineer with a passion for product design, Zaidi started building air purifiers in 2019 for his family after his baby daughter developed a cough. He purchased an imported air purifier, took it apart, and quickly realised that with the right materials, it was no “rocket science” to build one himself.

He claimed his “work better, look better, and cost just Rs25,000.” These air purifiers restart automatically after power outages, are nearly silent, and are easy to repair. The filter costs Rs2,400 and needs replacing each season. Each unit is good for a 500 square feet room if fully sealed.
Authorities take action

Stubble burning in India and Pakistan. The blue line is the border between the two countries. Pakistan (left) and India (on the right).

Anwar said the government has introduced several measures to reduce emissions and improve air quality, adopting a whole-of-government approach with all departments working together for the first time.

Authorities have already banned barbecuing food without filters and use of motorised rickshaws.

The government distributed 1,000 subsidised super-seeders to farmers as an alternative to burning rice stubble and took legal action against over 400 farmers who violated the burning ban. “This carrot and stick approach will be very effective,” endorsed Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri, the executive director of the Islamabad-based think tank, Sustainable Development Policy Institute.

Anwar said super seeders will convert residue into mulch, improving production and speeding sowing. Penalising a few farmers will deter others from breaking the law.

“But the government’s own figures show agriculture contributes less than 4 per cent to smog,” pointed out Hassan Khan, a farmer in Punjab, and added, “Why waste so much time and expense on it; why not focus on the bigger polluters like the transport industry?”

Another measure the government took involved demolishing over 600 of the 11,000 smoke-emitting brick kilns that hadn’t switched to zigzag technology, including 200 in and around Lahore.

Terming brick kilns the “low hanging fruit,” Dr Parvez Hassan, senior advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and president of the Pakistan Environmental Law Association, who, in 2003 and again in 2018, was appointed the chairperson of the Lahore Clean Air Commission and the Smog Commission by the Lahore High Court to come up with the smog policy, did not approve the “arbitrary decision of dismantling” the kilns. In his view, supporting the kiln owners with “available concessional financing for conversion to zizag technology” would be a more effective way.

He added that it was well known that the transport (oil), cement and textile sectors were the bigger polluters, but they were very influential. “Power in Pakistan has always meant being above the law,” he said, adding that the “general lack of political will and effective capability to monitor compliance” also acted as roadblocks.

“No country in the world has succeeded in good environmental policies unless it has first built a capacity to implement! The journey must begin with capacity building!”

However, Anwar said, action has been taken with visits to 15,000 industrial units, sealing 64 mills, and demolishing 152 factories.

With 43pc of air pollution in the province caused by unfit vehicles, Anwar also held the transporters responsible for the smog. He shared that Lahore has 1.3 million cars and 4.5 million two-wheelers, with 1,800 motorcycles added daily. He also mentioned that the traffic police had been ordered to impound vehicles without fitness certificates. Last month, a fine of Rs16.09 million was imposed on over 24,000 substandard vehicles across the province.

“Getting a vehicle fitness certificate in Pakistan is as easy as a blind person getting a license to drive!” said a petroleum expert who requested anonymity. “We need to clean the fuel, scrap old vehicles, and make vehicle emissions testing mandatory,” he added.

Imran Khalid, a climate governance expert, emphasised that improving fuel quality alone wasn’t enough; vehicles and engines also need upgrades to fully benefit from better fuel. He noted that while Euro 5 fuel is available in Pakistan, it’s not widely accessible, and Euro 6 is the standard in India. “I haven’t seen any survey on how many cars in Pakistan have Euro 5 compliant engines,” he added.

“I think it would be far more effective to invest in mass transit, but there is no talk of this issue; we keep making more motorways, widening roads, and bringing in more vehicles on roads in the cities instead of investing in railways and commuter rails,” said farmer Khan.

The petroleum expert urged the government to approve the refinery upgrade policy, which has been delayed for two years, adding that upgrades will take up to five years.

Despite various actions, people in Lahore remain unconvinced, calling them too little, too late.

“The measures announced by the government should have been operationalised at least six months before the smog season and the 24/7 enforcement of these priorities should be rigorously monitored by a dedicated team with support of the public through awareness campaigns,” pointed out advocate Hassan.

Nizami called for year-round efforts against air pollution, questioning why no one is held accountable for cutting millions of trees for unplanned housing while the focus remains on controlling stubble burning.

The Pakistan Air Quality Experts (PAQx) group, a coalition of 27 professionals from public health, environmental science, law, and economics, has written to the prime minister, suggesting the establishment of a “comprehensive, nationwide real-time air quality monitoring network” for informed decision-making and responsive policymaking.

Anwar defended the smog plan, stating it’d been in progress since April and required public cooperation, including staying indoors and wearing masks. Punjab’s senior minister, Marriyum Aurangzeb, warned that failure to wear masks could lead to a complete city lockdown.

“I don’t see the plan working as the air quality is getting from bad to worse,” said Sohail.

Nizami criticised the government for making a lot of noise but taking little action. “It’s shameful how they’ve shifted health responsibilities to the private sector,” he said.

Sohail suggested cloud seeding for artificial rain, noting its positive impact last year. Nizami also supported using artificial rain to clear the haze.

Anwar explained that cloud seeding required the right clouds and humidity. “But we are quite ready and as soon as the timing is right, we will do it,” he promised.
Climate diplomacy

While 70pc of smog in Lahore is locally generated, nearly 30pc comes from India. Manoj Kumar, a scientist with the Finnish Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, noted that the Indo-Gangetic Plain formed an “interconnected airshed,” affecting air quality, but local sources played a major role in Lahore’s pollution levels.

The chief minister is keen to start talks with her Indian counterpart. “Maryam Nawaz will soon send a letter to the Chief Minister of Indian Punjab, expressing her willingness to visit India and invite him to Pakistan,” said Anwar.

Kumar praised the Punjab chief minister’s initiative, emphasising that long-term, coordinated efforts between both countries could lead to improved air quality through a unified approach. But the efforts should not stop at the Punjab regions alone, as the airshed is shared and goes beyond India.

Anwar said Pakistan is considering hosting a “regional climate conference in Lahore soon.”

Header image: Smog near the Ghanta Ghar (Clock Tower) in Faisalabad, a city about 120km from Lahore and the third most populous city after Karachi and Lahore. Credits: Khalid Mahmood/Wiki & handout.

This article was originally published in Inter Press Service and has been reproduced here with permission.

Zofeen T. Ebrahim is an independent journalist based in Karachi.
She tweets at @zofeen28.

ENVIRONMENT: TO BREATHE OR NOT TO BREATHE?

Sheheryar Khan 

Published November 10, 2024

DAWN

Passengers wait for a train at a railway station amid smoggy conditions in Lahore on November 3, 2024 | AFP

The onset of smog season in October results in a decline in air quality across Punjab, on either side of the Pakistan-India border. Lahore and Delhi are traditionally the worst affected, with the Pakistani city recording “unprecedented” pollution levels.

The air quality index, which measures a range of pollutants, exceeded 1,000 in Lahore last week — it is considered “unhealthy” at the level of 100 and “hazardous” when it is 300 or more — according to data from IQAir, an air quality monitor.

The situation, in Lahore and elsewhere in Pakistan’s Punjab, is being made worse by the political and policy inertia of the Punjab government.

Every year, there are multiple studies and reports published on the subject and policy dialogues are convened to add to the public discourse. Despite these efforts, one question looms large: why, despite having ample scientific data and understanding of pollution patterns, has the government failed to take decisive action?

Despite having ample data and understanding of pollution patterns, Punjab has failed to take policy decisions to combat the year-round smog problem, thereby subjecting its residents to “hazardous” levels of pollution in winter…

The answer lies not in a lack of awareness, but in a deeply rooted knowledge-action gap, where the presence of scientific knowledge fails to translate into policy change, because of political and institutional barriers.

Over the past decade, environmental scientists, both locally and globally, have made substantial progress in identifying the root causes of air pollution. Detailed data have mapped out the major culprits: industrial emissions, agricultural stubble burning, vehicular emissions and construction dust. Seasonal spikes, most notably in winter, occur due to temperature inversions, trapping pollutants close to the ground and amplifying smog.

Similarly, there have been several studies on the socio-economic impacts of smog, especially related to deteriorating public health. Yet, despite having this data readily available and witnessing the devastating health and economic impacts of air pollution, policy responses remain fragmented, inconsistent and slow.

Punjab’s Environmental Policy

One might assume that simply knowing the causes of pollution would lead to swift action, but the science-policy relationship is rarely straightforward. Despite clear scientific evidence of the problem, decision-makers are caught between competing interests, fragmented responsibilities, and the political weight of environmental regulations on influential sectors.

For instance, while it is well-known that stubble-burning contributes significantly to smog, attempts to curb this practice have been largely ineffective. Farmers, already struggling with limited financial resources, view alternatives — such as crop residue shredders — as too costly, even with government subsidies, and continue with stubble-burning every year.

Over in the industrial sector, rather than enforcing stricter regulations or increasing support for alternatives, policymakers have often resorted to temporary shutdowns of industrial sites or limited brick kiln operations. Such actions fail to address the core issues and provide only brief respites from poor air quality.

Temporary shutdowns only reduce emissions momentarily and do not tackle the long-term pollution generated daily by factories and kilns. Addressing these issues would require establishing enforceable, year-round standards, incentivising cleaner technologies and alternative fuels, and ensuring a robust system for regular inspections and penalties for non-compliance.

AQI levels in Lahore between Nov 2-4, 2024: Lahore saw its AQI reach an “unprecedented” level of over 1,000, more than three times the level considered “hazardous” to health | IQAir

Political Stakes and Misplaced Priorities

A core reason for inaction lies in the political and economic stakes tied to air pollution and misplaced priorities. Punjab’s industrial sector, one of the primary contributors to pollution, is also a major economic driver. Implementing stringent regulations could slow down production, impact profits and even lead to job losses.

Similarly, agricultural practices such as stubble-burning are deeply entrenched, and sudden changes could lead to significant disruptions in an already strained agricultural economy. Even though these sectors have been identified as critical polluters, the government is reluctant to pursue measures that could be politically costly.

As far as the issue of misplaced priorities is concerned, a case in point is the development model of Lahore, which has relied on road infrastructure projects with the aim to ease traffic congestion in the city. This has resulted in the construction of signal-free corridors across the city. This also means that, during the construction phase of these projects, the cement and dust particles are likely to remain suspended in the air, contributing to the bad air quality.

Consequently, there is an incentive for citizens of the city to use private transport which, as a result of these corridors, will be much quicker for daily commutes than public transport. The entire development model of Lahore incentivises more vehicles on roads, rather than focusing on a public transport policy that doesn’t incentivise use of private transport and vehicles.

State’s Responsibility

With the recent passage of the 26th Amendment, the constitution of Pakistan now enshrines the “Right to a Clean and Healthy Environment” under Article 9A. This amendment mandates the government to protect citizens from environmental harm, making it incumbent on the state to address the severe air quality crisis.

Now that the evidence unequivocally shows air quality levels have reached hazardous levels, the government’s responsibility to act is more pressing than ever. To put it simply, government action against the smog crisis is a public health imperative.

What Punjab needs now is not more data, but a concerted, integrated approach that prioritises public health over short-term, knee-jerk, gimmick-oriented solutions, such as using mist machines on the streets of Lahore.

Way Forward

Much of the data points to automobiles as a major contributor of emissions and pollution. There is existing regulation on shifting to cleaner Euro-V fuels across the country, but that is only part of the solution.

The preponderance of old vehicles with inefficient engines is equally responsible for emissions, which is why the automobile legislation should focus on an effective motor vehicle-testing regime and a plan to phase out old/polluting vehicles. Additionally, there should be a focus on public transport legislation, whereby incentives are provided to citizens and organisations to take up public over private transport.

This was also among the recommendations of a recent policy report published by the World Wide Fund for Nature Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan), titled Situational Analysis of Air Quality in Lahore.

Among other things, the report lays emphasis on the need for an efficient mass transit system. It says that expanding Lahore’s mass transit options can mitigate vehicular pollution. Lahore’s Metro Bus and Orange Line Metro Train have been effective, but further development of affordable, efficient mass transit across the city would encourage public use, thus reducing private vehicle reliance and emissions over the long term.

Such a developmental project also makes political sense and is in line with the political parties’ emphasis on large-scale infrastructure projects that are tangible signs of ‘development’ and progress.

There is a need to influence policy and decision-making to consider environmental factors as part of the planning process. Lahore, and Pakistan as a country on the whole, requires a solid, integrated green and sustainable plan for urban expansion. Presently, cities grow and central business districts develop without proper zoning strategies and without keeping in mind the environmental footprint of such development.

Each year, the cost of inaction becomes more apparent. The time has come to bridge this knowledge-action gap by implementing policies that reflect both scientific insight and on-the-ground realities of Punjab’s social and economic landscape.

If the government can move beyond the political inertia that has paralysed efforts thus far, there is hope that Punjab’s air can one day be breathable again.

The writer is a Commonwealth Scholar at the University of Bristol in the UK

Published in Dawn, EOS, November 10th, 2024

An unwanted fifth season

Umair Javed 

November 11, 2024 

DAWN

PUNJAB’S unwanted fifth season — smog — is currently in full bloom. Air quality in cities like Lahore, poor throughout the year, is at its toxic worst between October and January, with AQI readings well above 500 on most days.

The government’s response so far hinges on school closures and the enforcement of location-specific lockdowns. While keeping vulnerable groups, like children, away from public spaces filled with poisonous air is understandable, it is unlikely that air quality will be much cleaner at home.

Protest and despair at poor air quality is now a standard ritual during these months. Since at least 2015, when the onset of smog became sharply apparent in October, environmentalists and other experts have deliberated on what can be done to solve the issue. The answers are wide-ranging, and the absence of government ownership of the problem in the first few years didn’t help.

Almost a decade on, we can claim some clarity on the proximate causes of the air quality crisis. We know, thanks to source apportionment studies, that transport and industrial emissions are a major source of the problem, when averaged out through the year.

On account of further work, by Cambridge- and Oxford-based scientists Abdullah Bajwa and Hassan Sheikh, we know that vehicle fleet age, two-stroke engines in motorcycles and rickshaws, along with fuel quality are significant features of the problem.


Air quality is an issue that cannot be privatised beyond the mere use of air purifiers in private spaces.

We also know that crop burning in East Punjab contributes to the spike in smog levels during these current months, partly because of wind direction and the inversion of temperature that keeps particulate matter suspended in the air for longer.

Knowing all what we know now, the set of solutions available to us is also fairly clear. Changes in fuel quality, enforcement of fitness standards to phase out polluting vehicles, stricter regulations on industrial emissions, and the development of mass transit solutions to reduce the number of private vehicles on the road are all steps adopted by cities that grappled with air quality issues during the 20th century. In the present context, we have the additional option of ensuring public transport doesn’t add to the problem, mainly by inducting New Energy Vehicles.

Similarly, given that emissions do not respect the Radcliffe line, fenced or otherwise, cross-border collaboration between the two Punjabs is a categorical necessity. Domestic standards and interventions mentioned earlier will clear up the air, through the year on average, but spikes during October-November require the two countries to cooperate more closely and forge a collective solution.

Like with many other public policy issues in Pakistan, offering a set of solutions is not necessarily the problem. In fact, many of these interventions have been identified by the government itself, including through its own source apportionment studies carried out in the last few years. The challenge for us is one of state capacity and fiscal resources. It is precisely this challenge that makes one far more pessimistic about the short- and medium-term prospects for cleaner air.

State capacity is the ability of public sector institutions to implement whatever rules, regulations, objectives it sets out to achieve. As sociologist Michael Mann put it, this ability itself is of two types of power — despotic, which usually relies on punitive and coercive capacity; and infrastructural, which relies on cooperation, coordination, and behavioural shifts.

The weakness of infrastructural power among Pakistani public sector organisations is fairly clear. Rules and regulations, when they do exist, are subverted by powerful societal actors, or undermined by state officials themselves. When the state attempts to deliver services itself, it runs into significant resource constraints, or falls prey to various forms of inefficiencies.

These weaknesses are both a cause and a consequence of increased privatisation in every domain. People who can afford to opt out of state delivery in domains such as housing, water, health, education, even energy, have done so. The market caters to all such needs, as long as people can pay. With the rich and powerful no longer reliant on the state, there is even less pressure on officials to cater to the needs of those who have no other option.

Air quality, however, is an issue that cannot be privatised beyond the mere use of air purifiers in private spaces. Given the rate at which the AQI index is climbing, even purifiers won’t be able to solve the issue. Sure, the rich will have access to better healthcare and the luxury of not going out unless absolutely necessary, but that doesn’t offer the same type of insulation that an off-grid solar system or generator does against a failing public sector electricity grid.

There is no option, then, but to address the crisis. All the steps mentioned above require not only great fiscal outlay, but also the state to perform at a level of ability and capacity that it has seldom demonstrated in recent years. Will government departments tasked with monitoring vehicle fitness levels step up and increase monitoring?

Will local administrators who carry the responsibility of shutting down polluting industrial units be given the resources and protection to take on powerful interests? Will narrow national security considerations be set aside, and meaningful cross-border collaboration initiated?

Such steps can only take place once there is a level of clarity within the government about the smog issue being a public health crisis bigger than any encountered in the past. And that it requires explicit and dedicated attention over a long period of time to solve. Praying for a change in weather is not a sound strategy; similarly hoping that people forget about it or get used to it won’t save anyone’s lungs. The capacity required to tackle the problem needs to be built by the state, and the time to do it is right now.

The writer teaches sociology at Lums.

X: @umairjav

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2024

The roads are killing us

Cities cannot become concrete jungles of flyovers and interchanges and still have clean air.

Arifa Noor 

November 12, 2024

DAWN

LAST week, the prime minister found time to inaugurate two flyovers in Islamabad. Despite the ‘live coverage’ on television, it wasn’t a news item that attracted much attention.

Most people were too busy discussing the judiciary, the failed attempt to sell PIA, or the smog in Lahore and the rest of Punjab, with the provincial capital topping pollution charts worldwide.

But as discussion focused on Lahore’s ranking and the filth that most urban residents in Pakis­tan inhale all year, a greyness also descended on Islamabad. By the end of the week, winter sunshine in the capital had disappeared, as had the clear views of the Margalla Hills.

While this is relatively new for Islamabad, it is not unfamiliar. An exceptionally dry spell the previous winter had covered our lives with similar dullness. In other words, the infamous smog has reached the capital too; it will stay until there is rain. True, Islamabad can’t compare with Lahore, but it’s a beginning. And we know how this story ends — in many shades of grey and no sun.

But what does this have to do with the prime minister’s presence at city events in Islamabad, some may wonder. Everything. For while we moan and groan about the poison the people breathe in, day in and day out, and discuss industrial pollution in cities and how the winds from India are to blame, the issue will not be addressed until we change the way we think. Cities cannot become concrete jungles of flyovers and interchanges for the comfort of cars and still ensure blue skies and clean air.

Politicians continue to be obsessed with brick-and-mortar projects, equating them with development and good governance. In this outdated worldview, roads, flyovers and interchanges are the cool kids of development projects. Modern-day Lahore is a testament to it; where concrete crept up on large parts of ‘elite’ Lahore — Gulberg, Liberty, Model Town, DHA. Roads were widened, signal-free corridors added, and when all else failed, flyovers were squeezed in so that cars could zip around.

In the process, the green areas were narrowed and even done away with altogether. Ask those who remember the green belt that made up the Gulberg Boulevard before it was shrunk, planted with palm trees, and the road widened. Few people might remember, but they may have noticed that the wide road is no longer enough for the traffic, which has grown exponentially since.

As Kevin Costner once told us, build and they will come. What we in Pakistan did not and do not realise is that once roads are built, the cars will come; so many that the bigger roads will not be enough either. And with the traffic comes air pollution, which is the far bigger cause of the smog than winds from India.

The same solution/problem was imported to Islamabad during the Gen Musharraf years, when the avenues were widened needlessly. Needlessly because more than a decade after Musharraf has left, traffic in the city is still not enough to warrant these wide avenues. But we continue to build more roads, widen the existing ones, and build flyovers because traffic should whizz through a city the way it does on highways and motorways.

No one complains or protests because it suits the policymakers and the rich — the same people who will petition the courts about Monal, stone-crushing, and the sanctity of the Margalla Hills but never about the concrete that is conquering the city. Roads suit those who can afford cars, and hence it is easier to pretend this is not about the environment.

Roads, frankly, are a project for the rich and by the rich. Anyone living in Islamabad will realise this if they glance sideways, while whizzing down a wide road at 80 or 100 kilometres per hour. On either side, ordinary people stand, trying to figure out when they should run across without being run over; they have to run because there is no dignified way of crossing many roads.

The motorists may also notice, if they bothered to look, the people standing patiently at one end of the flyover, hoping for someone to slow down and offer them a lift to the other end. Because that flyover takes a car just seconds to traverse but a pedestrian much longer.

With no public transport and these highway-style roads in the middle of a city, the message for everybody is that a car or a motorbike is essential for life. Without one, the city doesn’t work for you. How can it, for while cars require four- to six-lane roads, people are told to climb up sky-high stairs to cross a road because pedestrian crossings are for the convenience of the motorists.

These pedestrian bridges are surely a desi invention, because never have I seen one in big Western cities where the traffic moves slowly so that people can walk. Indeed, in the rest of the world, urban planners are ripping out flyovers and big roads, thus restricting traffic. But Pakistan continues to move in a different direction. In fact, our idea of public transport also begins with roads. Before the bus is even purchased, roads are built for it.

This hits one all the more in Islamabad, because the capital was conceived as a 15-minute city. Take a close look at any of the older parts of town and it’s evident: the small parks are easily located and wide pedestrian walkways (despite the generators and security guard room encroachments) and small markets are included in every sub-sector, ensuring that a grocery story is within walking distance of every house. Move further away to the newer sectors and most of these amenities are missing; but big roads and the dust are ever-present.

This did become a bit of a rant. But as a layperson, I don’t know how else to say that Pakistani citizens will not enjoy the luxury of clean air till there is an overhaul of our development model and city planning. Dirty air cannot be fixed via piecemeal efforts.

The writer is a journalist.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2024