Combating smog: myopic policymaking

Pakistan was blessed with four seasons but being the innovative nation that we are we decided to add a new season to our year, the smog season. Through relentless efforts of polluting industries, citizens’ environmentally unsustainable lifestyles, and profound lack of vision and action from our regulatory authorities, we were finally able to integrate this season in the year on a regular basis mostly spanning from October till January. It is the time of the year when Pakistanis are suffocating in the toxic mixture of smoke and fog. In accordance with the seasonal requirements, each year the concerned regulatory authorities are busy holding meetings and forming smog control committees till the season passes only to come back the next year with more force. This year the season is once again upon us and it has paired up with the Covid-19 pandemic to wreak havoc. So, the concerned authorities once again put their heads together to figure out what they are supposed to do and they most certainly did not disappoint us. Since based on past performance, we were expecting myopic policymaking from them and they delivered.

The authorities have decided to close conventional brick kilns for approximately two months to curb smog. This is a classic example of myopic decision-making that focuses only on immediate relief without any concern towards future policy implications or course of events. Even to a layman, the decision to shut down polluting brick kilns for two months will sound extremely short-sighted. The best question to ask the decision-makers is what will happen after two months. Will the kilns stop polluting the air upon re-opening or will a magic formula turn the polluted air into clean air? And what about other pollution sources — brick kilns are not the sole contributor to this environmental nightmare we are living in. Air pollution in Pakistan is attributed to polluting industries, burning of consumer, industrial and agricultural waste, vehicular emissions, and lack of recycling at both individual and organisational levels.

The solution to this smog problem is present in the green restructuring of industries and green banking is the engine of a green economy. The government should focus on developing green industries and green consumers through the implementation of green banking. Green finance is an important part of this and focuses on minimising environmentally and socially risky financing portfolio and expanding a bank’s green financial portfolio. Instead of shutting down conventional kilns, SBP should launch a green financing scheme for kilns adopting zig-zag technologies like the SBP’s renewable energy scheme.

A major problem in the government’s environmentally sustainable vision is the lack of connectivity between various projects and policies. If the polluting kilns are being shut down, is the government launching green construction projects? The answer sadly is no. All construction projects being launched including Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme and the Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project are not green projects. Similar opportunities for green development exist in the case of CPEC. Such developmental projects could have triggered the green industries if the government had planned them on an environmentally sustainable basis. Unless the demand for green products and services is created, green financing cannot take off in Pakistan. Unfortunately, the SBP has not issued a follow-up green banking policy even three years after the issuance of Green Banking Guidelines. The regulatory authority should set the path for the development of a green economy in the country by issuing green banking policies and regulations along with green finance schemes for all industries. Green banking is the solution to our government’s myopia concerning environmental degradation, resource depletion, and climate change challenges existing in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 12^th, 2020.

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