PLEDGES FOR CLEAN AIR
Work that address pollution’s results, rather than its origin, miss the point, said Ahmad Ali Gul at Lahore’s University of Management and Technology.
” It’s like when you have a shower and it’s filled and it’s creating a huge disaster, do you first get a towel or do you first shut the faucet”? he said.
” First, we need to focus on reducing the pollution and then we talk about how to defend ourselves from smog”.
The government has blamed foe India, which borders Punjab province, for waste blowing over into Lahore.
But Pakistan has limited car emissions requirements, and officials admit 83 per cent of Lahore’s coal emissions are from travel.
” Switching to a cleaner fuel would give quick results, we’ve seen it in another countries”, said Frank Hammes, the world CEO of the Switzerland-based AQI heat quality job.
But that “needs a very powerful key effort to push down maybe the painful adjustments that need to be made in order to reduce air pollution”, he added.
Pakistan’s government wants electric cars to account for a third of new income by 2030.
Cheaper Chinese types launched in Pakistan in 2024, but currently make up only a portion of total vehicle sales in a land where 40 per cent of the 240 million people lives in poverty, according to the World Bank.
Pakistan had a taste of fresh air during the pandemic, when a shutdown forced vehicles off the streets and factories to shut in March 2020, but it was shortlived as the financial effect was too great for many to keep.
” Air quality improved so much that we could even see the stars in Lahore in the evening”, said Omar Masud, a director of Urban Unit, which analyses pollution data for the government.
While climate change can make air pollution worse, few Pakistanis worry about global warming, explained Abdul Sattar Babar, Ipsos director for Pakistan.
” Most Pakistanis are overwhelmed by the economic challenges that they are facing”, he said.
” When you can barely survive, climate issues are obviously not your primary concern”.