Experts say the government’s efforts that lose the point, rather than the source, to cope with the effects of pollution.
Tens of millions of Pakistanis spent many years breathing toxic air pollution at least four months in the worst smog season of winter, at least four months. AFP.
Pakistan regularly is one of the most polluted countries in the world, Lahore often lives with the most contaminated megate between November and February.
O FPS of AQICN analysis of the data listed since 2018 by the Independent Air Monitoring Project shows that the smog season began a month ago in October 2024-2025 and remained high in October, including pollution, usually less affected.
14 million residents of Lahore spent six months breathing PM 2.5 – small particles that may enter the lungs and bloodstream – 20 times or more than the global health organization recommendation.
In Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, and the capital Islamabad was targeted for 120 days of pollution level in the same throat.
A factory owner in Lahore acknowledged, “which is deteriorating every year every year,” who wants to be anonymous after openly criticizing government policies. “If I was rich, my first decision would be to go to Pakistan for Dubai, protect my children and nurture them in a smug -free environment,” he said. AFP.
Legal action
Experts say pollution is mainly caused by factory and Traffic emissions. It is damaged in the winter when the farmers burn the crop pole and cold temperatures, and the slower winds have trapped deadly pollution.
This year, the winter rains, which usually bring relief, did not reach the end of February, as climate change offers Pakistan’s weather samples quickly.
The smog was so thick that it could be seen from space and authorities were forced to close millions of students serving schools in Punjab, the largest province, including its capital, Lahore.
Rasha Rashid, a young climate activist, said that Islamabad is rapidly becoming “another Lahore” and has launched a legal action against the government. The 21 -year -old, who is asthma, said, “It’s really asthma.” AFP. “I can’t go out, even if I have exams. It is affecting not only our physical health but also our mental health.
In a November IPSOS survey, four out of five Pakistanis said they were affected by smog.
It can cause throat inflammation, surround the eyes and respiratory diseases, while prolonged exposure can trigger stroke, heart disease and lung cancer. The effects are worse for children who breathe faster and weaken the immune system.
‘In the battle’
This smoky season, the provincial government of Punjab Announced the “war against smog”, offering machinery subsidy fares to avoid cleaning and burning crop poles to farmers with ten times in public air quality surveillance equipment. It has promised to rapidly enforce the emission regulations on tens of thousands of factories and more than 8,000 brick kilns, which is an important source of black carbon emissions.
But environmentalists and experts say that the action has been complex and sometimes contradictory, including restrictions on private air quality surveillance equipment, which the government claims to be “misleading results that cause panic.” Experts say that anti -SMOG machines, including a tower in Lahore, are closed two months after installation, effectively useless.
“This is equivalent to opening an air -conditioner,” said a person talking about anonymity.
The promises of clean air
Ahmed Ali Gul, of the University of Management and Technology of Lahore, said efforts that deal with the effects of pollution with Musk Point instead of its source. “This is like when you have a bathtub and it flows and it is creating a huge mess, do you grab the towel first or do you close the tap first?” He said. “First, we need to focus on reducing the emission and then we talk about how to protect ourselves from smog.”
The government has In Lahore, rival India was blamed for spreading pollution in Lahore.
But Pakistan has limited vehicles emission standards, and officials acknowledged that Lahore’s carbon emissions are from 83 pc transport.
“Changing into cleaner fuel will produce immediate results, we have seen it in other countries as well,” said Frank Hams, a global CEO of Switzerland’s AQI Air Quality Project. He added, but it “sometimes needs a very strong central effort to make painful changes that need to be done to reduce air pollution.”
The government of Pakistan wants to make one -third of the new sales of electric vehicles (EV) by 2030.
According to the World Bank, Chinese models launched Pakistan in 2024, but currently there is a part of the sales of cars in a country where 40 % of the population of 240 million lives in poverty.
Pakistan had a clean air taste during pandemic disease when a lockdown forced vehicles out of roads and factories in March 2020, but it was short -term, because the economic impact was great to tolerate many.
Omar Masood, a director of the Urban Unit, analyzed pollution data for the government, “The quality of the wind improved so much that we can see the stars of Lahore in Syria.”
Although climate change can make air pollution even worse, Pakistanis IPSOS Director Abdul Sattar Babar explained that some Pakistanis are worried about global warming.
“Most Pakistani economic challenges are overwhelmed by which they face,” he said. “When you can barely survive, climate problems are not clearly your basic concern”.
Header image: On November 5, 2024, passengers ride along a street in Lahore. – AFP/File
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