Apocalypse now?

In November 2019, Lahore was fully enveloped in smog as the air quality of the city dipped to the second worst in the entire world. Monitors registered jaw-dropping readings — more than 30 times what Pakistan’s government considers the safe limit — while visuals depicted rather horrifying scenes. It was something out of an apocalyptic movie, as “higher emissions and cold weather” combined to form acrid smog, created from a mix of chemicals and biological materials that react to form tiny hazardous particles that had blanketed Lahore and many other parts of Punjab. Every year, from November to January, people breathe in this harmful mixture which affects their cardiopulmonary system.

Unfortunately, such high levels of toxicity in the air is not just restricted to Lahore. The recently published World Air Quality Report 2019 has ranked Pakistan as the second most polluted country in the world, with readings 100% more than the threshold. Such lamentable conditions are merely a glimpse of the untold damages that climate change and global warming can bring out, especially in Pakistan. The harsh reality is that millions and millions of livelihoods are at risk. Regrettably, while the Ministry of Climate Change has drafted the Pakistan Clean Air Program 2020, in-depth research and statistical data remains scant due to the lack of funding and resources. The information that is present indicates that vehicle and industrial emission coupled with solid waste and crop burning contribute the most to poor air quality.

The government needs to realise that planting a billion trees at random, without a proper goal in mind, is utterly useless. All of these multiple environmental events need to be considered as a single problem. Pakistan now seriously needs to move towards sustainable, renewable and eco-friendly means such as solar and hydro power incorporated within an entire national climate change framework in order to combat this crisis. Otherwise, the right to breathe may have to be enshrined as a basic human right, without exaggeration.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2020.

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