Hi everyone! This week, we will be covering Pakistan. Let’s take a look at the current air quality in the region. According to IQAir, the AQI index is currently 193 in Bahawalpur, a city bordering Pakistan and India. You might be wondering why I chose to cover Pakistan instead of India. The main reason in IQAir’s website, Pakistan ranks 2nd amongst countries that have the worst air qualities; Bangladesh ranks first, and India ranks third.
Why exactly is Pakistan one of the most polluted countries in the world?
Many of the vehicles in Pakistan use a highly polluting sulphur-laden gas. Transportation in Pakistan is a source of many problems. There has been an attempt to switch vehicles into the Euro 5 emissions standard, to reduce the amount of pollutants being released into the atmosphere. Despite this, progress has been slow. Some government authorities do not even take the current pollution issue seriously. This is what the city of Lahore looked like in December, which is just around less than 3 months ago:
Some locals argue that pollution is a result of government failure because even though more than 500 industrial units have been fined, and smoke-emitting vehicles and brick kilns have been banned, the air quality in many Pakistani cities remain like the one in the image above.
Many government officials and politicians refuse to take the blame, and instead point to innocent farmers for being the cause of much of the smog in cities such as Lahore (i.e. crop burning for agricultural purposes). They refuse to reflect and consider investing in proper public transport structures to reduce the number of vehicles on the road.
Some people have claimed that maybe more lockdowns should be set to reduce the number of people going out. These people drew inspiration from the lockdowns at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m sure you and I can agree that this is not a sustainable strategy. What Pakistan needs to do is to tackle pollution at its source – in this case, managing vehicle and road network systems.
Others, such as mothers, have forged a way against pollution, by lobbying other parents and schools to reinstate buses to reduce vehicle emissions. They are activists who have sought to make change because their government leaders have failed them.
It is unfortunate that leaders in many countries in the Global South lack the necessary qualities to protect its people. As reported by Greenstone & Fan (2019), if Pakistan worked on improving the air qualities in many of its cities, its residents would live up to 1.2 to 1.9 years longer. In the next post of the week, I will be glossing over 6 papers done by scholars to study the different types of pollution experienced in Pakistan.
See you in the next one! ✿
References
Al Jazeera (2021) Pakistan’s Lahore Again Tops World’s Most Polluted Cities List. 3 December. Available from: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/3/pakistan-lahore-tops-most-polluted-cities-list#:~:text=Pakistani%20authorities%20blame%20industrial%20emissions,10%20most%20climate%2Dvulnerable%20nations. [Accessed: 14 March 2022].
Ali, S. M. (2021) How Lahore Became the World’s Most Polluted Place. 29 November. FP. Available from: https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/29/pakistan-lahore-pollution-fossil-fuels-climate/ [Accessed: 14 March 2022].
Butt, D. (2021) The World Must Pay Attention to Pakistan’s Air Pollution Crisis. 16 December. Atlantic Council. Available from: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/southasiasource/the-world-must-pay-attention-to-pakistans-air-pollution-crisis/ [Accessed: 14 March 2022].
Greenstone, M. & Fan, Q. C. (2019) Pakistan’s Air Pollution Challenge & Potential for Longer Lives. Air Quality Life Index. Available from: https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Pakistan-Report.pdf [Accessed: 14 March
Hadid, D. (2020) ‘Scary Moms’ are Part of the Citizen War Against Pollution in Pakistan. 6 January. NPR. Available from: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/01/06/792693712/scary-moms-are-part-of-the-citizen-war-against-pollution-in-pakistan [Accessed: 14 March 2022].
IQAir (2022) Air Quality in Pakistan. 14 March. Available from: https://www.iqair.com/pakistan [Accessed: 14 March].
Khan, S. (2021) Why Pakistan has Some of the Most Polluted Cities in the World. 1 November. DW. Available from: https://www.dw.com/en/why-pakistan-has-some-of-the-most-polluted-cities-in-the-world/a-59686579 [Accessed: 14 March 2022].
Tanis, F. (2022) Lahore, Pakistan, is Locking Down to Improve Air Quality. 9 January. NPR. Available from: https://www.npr.org/2022/01/09/1071663548/lahore-pakistan-locks-down-for-air-quality [Accessed: 14 March 2022].