DECARBONISATION
As a familiar grey veil settles across Punjab, cities from Lahore to Faisalabad and Gujranwala are gasping for breath. Over the past two months, the province’s air has turned toxic, with pollution levels among the highest recorded anywhere in the world. Air quality across Punjab remained firmly in the unhealthy range, with all major urban centres recording dangerously elevated PM2.5 levels.
Although these figures are lower than the extreme ‘hazardous’ category observed in previous weeks, they still represent air pollution levels 10–12 times higher than WHO safe limits, underscoring that Punjab’s smog crisis remains a province-wide public health emergency rather than a localised or short-term episode.
This pollution emergency is no longer seasonal; it is structural. Each winter, Punjab’s cities are enveloped in dense haze, and each year the response remains the same: short-term bans, temporary school closures and appeals for citizens to stay indoors. But these measures do little more than buy time. The root cause lies deeper in the fossil-fuel-dependent industrial and agricultural systems that drive Punjab’s economy but poison its skies.
Punjab’s industrial belt, stretching from Lahore through Sheikhupura, Faisalabad and Gujranwala, forms the backbone of Pakistan’s manufacturing base. It is also the heart of the province’s emissions crisis. Hundreds of steel rerolling mills, cement plants, and textile factories rely on coal, furnace oil and pet-coke for power, often operating with outdated boilers and minimal pollution-control mechanisms.
In the brick-kiln sector, despite partial conversion to zigzag technology, many units continue to burn low-grade fuels and rubber waste, emitting black carbon and sulfur dioxide. Combined with vehicular emissions, crop-residue burning, and construction dust, these industrial outputs create a steady accumulation of airborne pollutants that, once trapped by winter inversions, suffocate entire cities.
The effects of this pollution are visible in hospital corridors across the province. Lahore, Faisalabad and Gujranwala have reported a sharp rise in respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses. Medical experts warn that prolonged exposure to such high particulate concentrations damages lungs, raises cancer risks and weakens immunity.
The human toll is mirrored by an economic one: air pollution costs Pakistan an estimated $47.8 billion annually, equivalent to about 5.88 per cent of GDP through lost productivity, healthcare expenses, and premature deaths, as highlighted by recent national analyses. Smog also disrupts daily business operations, forces school closures, and reduces agricultural yields due to diminished sunlight penetration and tropospheric ozone production. This mounting health and economic burden underscores that Pakistan’s air-quality crisis is not just an environmental issue but a full-scale development challenge.
These intertwined health and economic impacts make it clear that Punjab’s pollution crisis cannot be solved through enforcement alone; it requires a systemic shift in how industry is powered and regulated.
A joint Pakistan–India air-quality monitoring mechanism, supported by satellite data, could help mitigate cross-border impacts and enable cooperative mitigation strategies
Industrial decarbonisation offers the clearest path forward. Transitioning away from coal and furnace oil toward natural gas, biomass, hydrogen blends, and renewable electricity, modernising furnaces and installing flue-gas desulphurization and waste-heat recovery systems would drastically cut emissions. Cleaner production processes and adoption of ISO 50001 energy-management systems can improve efficiency and reduce both local pollution and greenhouse gases. Yet implementation remains uneven. Weak regulatory oversight, fragmented mandates and limited financing keep much of Punjab’s industry locked into high-emission patterns.
The government must prioritise a province-wide industrial decarbonisation framework that sets clear reduction targets for energy-intensive sectors. Major factories should be required to install Continuous Emission Monitoring Systems (CEMS) linked to the Punjab EPA for real-time compliance. Public disclosure of emission data, paired with strict penalties and performance-based incentives, can ensure accountability.
Expanding the State Bank’s green-financing facilities would help industries retrofit and transition without compromising competitiveness. A modest carbon-pricing mechanism or pilot emissions-trading system could further align industrial growth with environmental goals.
Beyond industry, Punjab must tackle transport and agriculture in tandem. Farmers need financial and logistical support to collect and sell rice straw for biomass energy rather than burning it. Expanding the electrification of buses and freight fleets serving industrial estates would help reduce vehicle emissions. A dedicated Clean Air Commission, with powers cutting across environment, industry, transport and agriculture, could coordinate these measures and publish transparent, weekly updates on progress.
Smog is also a transboundary issue. Crop-residue burning in Indian Punjab contributes significantly to regional haze, while pollutants from Pakistan’s own industrial heartland drift across borders. A joint Pakistan–India air-quality monitoring mechanism, supported by satellite data, could help mitigate cross-border impacts and enable cooperative mitigation strategies.
Clean air is ultimately a governance question, one that demands coordination between the Environment Protection Department, Nepra and the Ministry of Climate Change, rather than a meteorological one. Technology exists, financing tools are available and global precedents prove that determined action works. Beijing reduced PM2.5 levels by more than a third between 2013 and 2020 through fuel switching, industrial retrofits and strict enforcement. Punjab can do the same if it treats clean air as a development imperative rather than a seasonal inconvenience.
For now, however, the view remains bleak. As dusk falls over Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Sheikhupura, the sun sets into a dull orange haze of human making. This is the price of delay, a cost measured not only in hospital admissions and lost workdays but in the slow erosion of public health, environmental stability, and economic potential.
The path forward is clear: decarbonise industry, enforce emission standards and prioritise clean air as a right, not a privilege. Until that happens, Punjab will continue to wake each morning under a toxic dawn, a region suffocating in the very air that once gave it life. Industrial decarbonisation, institutional enforcement and cross-sector coordination together form Punjab’s only viable path to breathable skies.
The writer is associated with the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad (SDPI). The article does not necessarily represent the views of the organisation.