Blanket of poison

The thicket of smog that descended over Lahore in October has lingered on into the end of the year, and made Lahore one of the world’s most polluted cities. However, despite a smog blanket lingering over Lahore and much of Punjab’s other major cities, there is little that Pakistani officials have done concretely to deal with the crisis. This criminal failure to come up with strict domestic regulatory frameworks is leading to a spike in respiratory illnesses and thousands of premature deaths every year. What was once a blanket of fog, a traffic hazard at worst, is now a death trap for the public. And, as autumn moved into winter, the smog blanket became thicker. In rural Punjab, it is also crop burning season. Despite advice from district authorities to avoid crop burning, the practice has continued due to a failure to regulate and penalise the rule violators. There is no doubt a need to provide farmers with alternatives to clearing their fields – once that is ensured, the government is well within its right to censure those who continue to rely on crop burning.

The same issue continues across the border in India, where crop burning season is one month before Pakistan. Satellite images show a thick cover of smoke, which is what we breathe across both borders. However, crop burning alone is not enough to explain the intense concentration of pollutants in our major cities. The absence of environment-friendly industrialisation and transport policies, and the rise in urban areas, has led us to this point. Instead of coming up with policies to regulate smoke and pollutant emissions, both the Indian and Pakistani governments have blamed each other. Pakistan decided to blame Diwali firecrackers and crop burning across the border. These certainly share part of the responsibility, but this is exactly one of the reasons for environmental policies to be designed by both countries.

For its part, the EPA has suggested setting up monitoring posts at the border. The India story is a convenient one, prevents anyone from taking responsibility and creates a serious issue into a conspiracy against Pakistan. Instead, Pakistani officials must take responsibility for their own actions, and take the tough steps of tackling a coal-friendly energy policy and a car-friendly transport policy. The absence of formal policymaking to combat smog remains appalling, as is the public’s visible apathy towards improving its lot. Pollution does not know borders. Both a national and a regional policy to combat this is urgent.