The choke gets tighter as air pollution goes unchecked in Pakistan

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Dr. Farrukh A. Chishtie

The morning haze in Lahore no longer lifts with the sun—it thickens. Last year, in early November 2024, Punjab declared a public health emergency as Air Quality Index (AQI) values lurched into the “hazardous” range; schools shut, clinics overflowed, and city life slowed to a defensive crawl.

Reporters logged AQI readings well above 300, and, at moments, spiking far higher, while authorities rolled out a patchwork of closures and advisories to stagger through the week.

This isn’t an anomaly; it’s the pattern. The 2024 World Air Quality Report ranks Pakistan #3 most polluted globally, with a national annual PM2.5 average of 73.7 μg/m³—over 14× the WHO’s health-protective annual guideline of 5 μg/m³ the health ledger is devastating. The State of Global Air 2024 estimates 8.1 million deaths worldwide from air pollution in 2021; within that, multiple summaries of the same dataset place Pakistan’s toll near ~256,000 deaths in 2021 alone — disproportionately striking children, elders, and those with chronic illness.

Why this is not only “environmental”

Smog is often misfiled as a seasonal nuisance or an “environment” beat. In reality, it is a whole-of-society security threat that breaks daily life into unsafe fragments. When the air turns poisonous, core occupations—going to school, selling fruit at a roadside cart, welding on a construction site, cycling to class, queuing at a bus stop—become health-risking acts. The very mediums that make these occupations possible—clean air and safe outdoor space — are withdrawn. For the poorest Pakistanis, who work outside and cannot seal their homes or buy purifiers, the withdrawal is absolute.

This is precisely the terrain of occupational security: a values-based framework that asserts the right of people — and, critically, non-human entities like air, water, soil, and other living beings — to safe, peaceful, dignified existence and participation in daily occupations. It centers sustainability, justice, peace, compassion, and authenticity/accuracy as the ethical spine for decisions, challenging the default of individualized, market-first “security” that leaves the most exposed to bear the greatest risk.

Viewed through this lens, Pakistan’s smog season isn’t just an ambient hazard; it is systemic occupational insecurity:

• Sustainability: Emissions from traffic, brick kilns, open burning, and fuels push cities far past health thresholds, eroding the very conditions that sustain life and livelihood. A sustainable city is one where the school day and the workday are not toxic exposures.

• Justice: The heaviest burden falls on outdoor workers, informal vendors, waste pickers, and children — those with the fewest options to opt out. Air that is safe only for those who can purchase it indoors is not “public” air. The national burden figures underline a distributional crisis, not merely a meteorological one.

• Peace: Smog saps social functioning — schools shift online, clinics triage, cities throttle activity. Peace is not only the absence of conflict; it is the presence of conditions in which everyday occupations can proceed safely. When the sky itself becomes a barrier, social harmony frays.

• Compassion: Protective measures must prioritize the most exposed—children, pregnant people, elders, and outdoor workers—with practical supports (respiratory care, clean-air shelters, N95s), not just advisories. Compassion operationalizes as access.

• Authenticity & accuracy: Public trust requires credible, continuous monitoring and transparent reporting — data that communities, courts, and clinics can rely on. Without that, policy is a press release, not protection. The WHO guideline of 5 μg/m³ is the relevant yardstick.

How we got here: the sources we keep stoking

Smog is not an accident of weather. It is the by-product of choices—what fuels we burn, how we move, and how we regulate industry. To understand why the choke grows tighter each year in Pakistan, we must map the sources that feed the haze and see them through the lens of occupational security.

Traffic: the ever-growing exhaust

In 2000, there were fewer than 5 million registered vehicles in Pakistan. Today, that number is over 30 million, with motorcycles and rickshaws making up the majority. Road transport is now the largest single source of PM2.5 in cities. While Euro-5 fuel standards were adopted on paper, compliance remains inconsistent, enforcement weak, and vehicle inspection minimal.

For workers who depend on mobility — bus drivers, delivery riders, rickshaw operators— exposure is unavoidable. Their daily occupation is embedded in an atmosphere of exhaust. From an occupational security perspective, transport reform is not only about cleaner fuel but about ensuring that the right to safe mobility is preserved for both passengers and those whose livelihoods run on wheels.

Brick kilns and industry: legacy soot

The brick sector alone numbers over 20,000 kilns, densely concentrated in Punjab and KP. Until recently, most used outdated fixed-chimney designs that belched thick black smoke. Since 2019, a large share has been converted to zig-zag kilns, cutting emissions by nearly a third. Yet thousands remain unconverted, and enforcement fluctuates with the political winds.

For kiln workers — often migrants and bonded laborers — the irony is acute: they labor under conditions that poison both their lungs and the communities around them. Occupational security demands not only kiln conversion, but also worker protections: respiratory equipment, health coverage, and transition support.

Agriculture: fire on the fields

Each autumn, when rice is harvested, the stubble that remains is often torched in the fields. In Punjab alone, tens of thousands of fires burn within weeks. Satellite data show that on peak days, crop residue burning contributes over 30% of PM2.5 concentrations across the Indus basin.

Farmers burn because alternatives are scarce, costly, or poorly supported. The result: a cycle where the act of farming — one of humanity’s oldest occupations — directly undermines the security of others’ occupations: school, commerce, and care. Real security here means supporting farmers with straw-to-energy markets, pelletization plants, and payments for verified non-burning.

Power and fuels: high-sulfur legacies

Coal plants in Sahiwal and Thar, furnace oil used in factories, and diesel-run generators in every neighborhood continue to spew sulfur and nitrogen oxides. These are not just climate threats; they are chemical precursors that feed smog. Unlike Delhi or Beijing, Pakistan still lacks a robust system of continuous emissions monitoring for major power and industrial plants.

For surrounding communities, this means their occupations — teaching, vending, caregiving — occur downwind of invisible hazards. Occupational security insists that basic safeguards like scrubbers, filters, and low-sulfur fuels are not technical luxuries but prerequisites for safe daily life.

A cumulative chokehold

Each of these sources is potent alone. Combined, they form the toxic smog and fog that traps Pakistan in a cycle of reaction: emergency school closures, temporary factory shutdowns, and scattered bans. These may blunt the peak, but they never shift the baseline. When work itself requires inhaling poison, security is broken not at the border, but at the breath.

Through the occupational security lens, the real failure is clear: Pakistan has allowed entire categories of daily life —ntravel, work, farming, learningn—nto become inseparable from exposure to harm. Until we reverse that, each “smog season” will be less a season than a permanent occupation of unsafe air.

The cost in bodies and rupees (and how it breaks daily life)

Air pollution is not an abstract metric — it is a tally of shortened lives, interrupted schooling, lost wages, and families pushed into medical debt. In 2021 alone, air pollution contributed to 8.1 million deaths worldwide, making it the second leading global risk factor for early death after high blood pressure. Pakistan carries a heavy slice of this burden. Recent summaries of the State of Global Air 2024 indicate ~256,000 Pakistani deaths in 2021 linked to polluted air, with children under five accounting for ~68,100 of those losses. On any scale, this is a national public-health emergency, not a seasonal inconvenience.

The hit to human capital is visible in clinic lines and school calendars. During the November 2024 smog episode, Punjab authorities deployed hundreds of mobile clinics, treated millions of patients, and repeatedly closed schools and public spaces; on peak days tens of thousands sought care for respiratory and eye problems. When the air is unbreathable, students miss class, outdoor workers lose shifts, and caregivers—mostly women—shoulder unpaid labor at home. This is the erosion of occupational security in action: ordinary occupations (learning, earning, caregiving) become health-risking acts because the shared medium—air—is unsafe.

The economics mirror the health ledger. The World Bank estimates that air pollution costs Pakistan up to ~6.5% of GDP each year through illness, premature deaths, productivity losses, and lower cognitive performance — dragging down growth and widening inequality. That figure updates and reinforces a long-standing warning that environmental degradation (with air pollution as a major share) shaves ~6% of GDP in damages. These are not distant projections; they reflect current, annual losses that compound across generations. When the medium of everyday life—air—becomes toxic, learning, earning, and care all unravel. That is the true bill of smog.

Life expectancy metrics capture what families already know. According to the Air Quality Life Index, fine-particle pollution shortens the average Pakistani’s life by ~3.3 years relative to the WHO guideline. For children, the harms start before birth: a growing literature links PM2.5 exposure to preterm birth and low birth weight, shaping lifelong health and learning trajectories — another breach in occupational security, where the “occupation” of growing up healthy is compromised from day zero.

The yardstick for safety is clear. The WHO’s 2021 guideline sets 5 µg/m³ (annual PM2.5) to protect health. Pakistan’s national average in 2024 was 73.7 µg/m³—over 14× the guideline — ranking #3 globally on the IQAir list. Measured against that standard, status quo policies are failing by design; the result is a rolling deficit in learning, labor, and wellbeing that no country can afford.

What these numbers mean for everyday life (Occupational Security lens)

• Work: Outdoor workers—street vendors, construction crews, delivery riders—absorb the highest doses. Lost days and reduced productivity show up as thinner pay envelopes and higher clinic bills. A secure occupation requires clean air PPE (N95s), predictable “bad-air day” protocols, and employer-backed protections.

• Schooling: Repeated closures erode learning, widen gender gaps, and push low-income families toward dropout risks. Security here means clean-air classrooms and escalation plans tied to forecasted PM2.5, not ad-hoc closures.

• Care & health systems: Spikes overwhelm OPDs and pharmacies, delaying other treatments. Security means pre-positioned respiratory care, public dashboards, and forecast-triggered surges in staffing and supplies.

Governance broke first: from ritual to rule of law

Pakistan’s smog crisis is not merely chemistry; it is governance. A decade of our own reporting showed how the state flickered between ad-hoc bans and press briefings while the machinery that should have kept the air safe sputtered or went dark. After devolution, the once-functional JICA-backed national monitoring network was handed to provinces — then shut down in 2011, severing the data lifeline needed for credible action.

The result, as insiders told us, was a regulator beset by political pressure, thin capacity, and stalled enforcement.

When courts became the climate desk

Into that vacuum stepped the judiciary. The Lahore High Court’s Smog Commission (2017), followed by a Judicial Water & Environment Commission, forced smog policies onto the agenda and scrutinized compliance — an extraordinary proof that environmental protections have often advanced via court orders rather than routine administration. In parallel, Punjab approved a Smog Policy (2017) and promised systematic monitoring — but years later, even officials and advocates conceded that implementation lagged.

Policy on paper, pollution in practice

Our archives captured the pattern: field labs idle, AQ stations offline, district offices hollowed out, and “monitoring” reduced to episodic readings or dueling dashboards.

By 2018–19, citizens’ networks were often the only transparent window on PM2.5 pollutant levels, while officials pointed to partial closures and notices. The throughline, then and now, is simple: without continuous, transparent measurement, there is no management—and everyday occupations remain unsafe.

What’s changed since 2023—and why it matters

There is movement. Punjab notified a Clean Air Policy in April 2023, anchoring a multi-sector plan (transport, industry, kilns, waste, agriculture) under the provincial environment council. In March 2025, the World Bank approved US$300 million for the Punjab Clean Air Program (PCAP), targeting a 35% cut in PM2.5 over the next decade across the Lahore Division — paired with investments in monitoring, enforcement, and cleaner fuels. Complementary program documents are candid: vehicle emission norms remain outdated, and vehicle inspection is nascent, undermining road-transport control without a modern I/M regime and low-sulfur fuels.

This is the pivot Subh-e-Nau has advocated and argued for years: policy that binds—funded, monitored, and enforceable — so schools, clinics, vendors, farmers, and commuters can do their daily work without inhaling harm. Security is not a press conference; it’s a rule you can trust on the day your child walks to school.

Occupational security: rebuild authority around people’s daily occupations

Using the occupational security framework—a values-based approach centered on sustainability, justice, peace, compassion, and authenticity/accuracy—governance must be judged by whether it protects safe participation in everyday occupations (learning, vending, caregiving, farming, commuting).

Here is a compact for rule-bound governance that operationalizes that lens:

1. Measure like you mean it

   • Restore and expand continuous ambient monitoring with QA/QC; publish raw and validated data hourly with open APIs. Tie budgets and promotions to data completeness and uptime. (The absence of continuous monitoring has been a foundational failure.)

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2. Escalation by law, not by tweet

   • Enact a graded response rule (AQI/PM2.5 triggers → pre-declared actions: clean-air shelters, school schedule changes, dust controls, work-site PPE, traffic restrictions), reviewed annually by an independent panel. (Judicial interventions showed what binding triggers can do; the executive must institutionalize them.)

     
     

3. Enforce at the tailpipe, stack, and field

   • Fast-track modern vehicle inspection/maintenance and low-sulfur fuel timelines; install continuous emissions monitoring at large stacks; replace residue burning with paid alternatives and verified non-burning. Current documents explicitly flag weak emission norms and nascent I/M—close that gap.

     
     

4. Protect workers and students first (compassion and justice)

   • On bad-air days, guarantee N95s for outdoor workers, hazard-pay protocols, clean-air classrooms and attendance flexibility, and extend respiratory care in primary clinics. This is what compassion and justice look like in policy.

     
     

5. Authenticity & accuracy: radical transparency

   • Publish enforcement logs (kilns converted/closed, factories inspected, vehicles failed), fiscal flows, and third-party audits; align metrics with WHO PM2.5 guidance and PCAP targets so the public can track progress. Occupational security demands this level of honesty.

     
     

From outline to timeline: what to do in the next 90 days—and the next 12 months

Pakistan does not need more slogans; it needs a clock. Below is a time-bound action plan that protects people’s daily occupations — learning, earning, caregiving — using the occupational security values of sustainability, justice, peace, compassion, and authenticity/accuracy as the test for every step. Security isn’t a checkpoint; its the confidence that your child can breathe in class and your wages don’t require inhaling poison.

The next 90 days (pre-smog season triage)

1) Make air visible (authenticity/accuracy).

• Switch on/verify all urban PM2.5/NO₂/O₃ monitors; publish hourly, QA/QC’d data with an open dashboard and simple Urdu guidance. Use the WHO 5 µg/m³ annual PM2.5 guideline as the yardstick in every public brief.

• Where stations are missing, deploy calibrated temporary sensors; pair with satellite fire alerts for October–December. (We warned years ago that no measurement = no management—make this the season we fix it.)

  
  

2) Adopt a graded response rule now (peace and accountability).

• Pre-notify a GRAP-style playbook: AQI/PM2.5 trigger → automatic actions (dust suppression, construction controls, truck timing, DG-set restrictions, school schedule changes, N95s for outdoor workers). Lift measures only when levels fall below triggers for 48–72 h. (Delhi’s revised GRAP is a working template.)

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3) Protect the most exposed (compassion and justice).

• Children & schools: Stock N95/FFP2 masks; ready “clean-air rooms” (portable HEPA or DIY boxes) and hybrid timetables tied to forecast triggers. UNICEF flagged how Punjab smog endangers millions of children—prioritize them.

• Outdoor workers: Mandate employer-provided N95s and bad-air day task rotation; extend OPD hours for respiratory care and asthma meds at government clinics during alerts. (Measure uptake, not press coverage.)

  
  

4) Hit the dirtiest tons first (sustainability and justice).

• Brick kilns: Field-check combustion practices at zig-zag-converted kilns; shut non-compliant units until fixes are verified. Tie any fuel/credit support to verifiable compliance. (Backed by Punjab’s new Clean Air Program (PCAP) financing.)

• Transport hot spots: 24/7 mobile smoke checks on freight corridors and arterial intersections; impound gross emitters; intensify checks on diesel gensets at markets and schools under GRAP triggers.

• Open burning: Stand up joint teams (revenue and agriculture and local govts) with hotline and fines; deploy balers where straw markets exist and pay for verified non-burning during Oct–Dec (receipts and geo-tagged photos and random checks).

  
  

5) Radical transparency (authenticity/accuracy).

• Publish weekly enforcement ledgers: kilns inspected/closed, vehicles failed, waste-burning fines, clinic visits, school status. This is how trust is built—and how we prove occupational security isn’t just a slogan.

  
  

The next 12 months (lock-in structural cuts)

A) Clean transport (sustainability)

• Launch a modern Inspection & Maintenance (I/M) regime in Lahore Division: registration renewal contingent on passing tailpipe tests; quarterly public failure rates by depot.

• Lock in low-sulfur fuels and anti-tampering enforcement for DPF/AdBlue; pilot e-bus lanes on two high-exposure corridors with priority signals.

  
  

B) Industry and power (authenticity and justice)

• Require continuous emissions monitoring (CEMS) on large stacks (power, steel, cement) with public feeds; link tariff/tax perks to verified uptime.

• Update NEQS permits to include NOₓ/SO₂ controls timelines and periodic third-party audits.

  
  

C) Agriculture and waste (peace and sustainability).

• Institutionalize straw-to-value chains (pellets, bedding, bioenergy) with micro-grants; expand municipal solid-waste collection to eliminate open waste burning in peri-urban belts. (Use GRAP-style bans during episodes.)

  
  

D) Health & education shields (compassion)

• Make clean-air classrooms standard (portable HEPA units, leakage sealing, CO₂/PM displays).

• Create a respiratory surge protocol for peak months: pre-positioned inhalers, steroids, nebulizers; SMS alerts; fast-track triage lines.

  
  

E) Laws and money that bind (authenticity)

• Pass a provincial Clean Air Act with GRAP triggers, penalty schedules, and an annual independent review.

• Fund it: Ring-fence environmental levies and leverage the US$300 million World Bank PCAP facility for monitoring, enforcement, kiln conversion, and clean-transport pilots; publish disbursement dashboards.

  
  

Targets & public scorecard (what success looks like)

By September 2026, publish an independent scorecard with:

• PM2.5: ≥ 10–15% year-over-year reduction in Lahore Division annual mean (track against IQAir/official data; Pakistan’s 2024 average was 73.7 µg/m³, #3 globally—this is the baseline to beat). IQAirand1

• School continuity: ≥ 50% reduction in smog-related full-day closures (GRAP triggers and clean-air rooms). Commission for Air Quality Management

• Worker protection: ≥ 80% of registered construction/municipal contractors verified providing N95s on bad-air days.

• Kilns: 100% zig-zag compliance verified; zero non-compliant restarts during alerts (publish list weekly).

• Health: 20% reduction in smog-week OPD respiratory visits vs. 2024 peaks (with case definitions).

• Transparency: 95% monitoring uptime; all CEMS feeds public; monthly enforcement ledger posted. (This corrects the long-criticized measurement gap.

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Why this plan aligns with occupational security

• Sustainability: cuts emissions where tech is mature (kilns, diesel, waste), preserving the conditions for safe daily occupations.

• Justice: prioritizes protections (N95s, clean-air rooms) for children and outdoor workers who cannot opt out.

• Peace: replaces ad-hoc closures with predictable GRAP rules that keep cities functioning safely.

• Compassion: health surge protocols and employer duties translate empathy into access.

• Authenticity/Accuracy: real-time data, public ledgers, WHO-aligned standards—so people can verify progress.

  
  

Proof it can be done

If “the choke gets tighter” feels inevitable, it is not. Cities and countries have bent the PM2.5 curve quickly with rule-bound plans, cleaner fuels, and relentless monitoring. Here are success cases Pakistan can lean on — immediately — through the lens of occupational security (protecting learning, earning, caregiving, moving). Others have done this in five years. Pakistan can do it faster — because the know-how now fits on a checklist.

What’s worked elsewhere

1) Beijing & the “war on air pollution” (2013–2017)

A binding clean-air plan cut PM2.5 ~35% in five years across Beijing, with large gains in the wider region—powered by strict coal controls, vehicle/fuel standards, industrial retrofits, and dense monitoring. The health benefits were measurable and fast.

2) Delhi-NCR’s GRAP (graded response) and BS-VI fuels

Delhi’s GRAP created automatic, staged actions (construction curbs, truck restrictions, DG-set limits, school protocols) tied to AQI thresholds—now updated and re-issued every season. Nationwide, India jumped straight to BS-VI (Euro-6-equivalent) fuels in 2020, tightening tailpipe limits; published specs imply deep NOₓ/PM cuts for new vehicles.

3) Ulaanbaatar’s raw-coal ban (2019 →today)

Banning household raw coal and switching to cleaner briquettes delivered large winter PM drops and measurable child-health benefits in multiple analyses—proof that heating fuel policy can be a rapid win for lungs.

4) Mexico City’s PROAIRE programmes.

Over successive plans, the city cut “danger days” dramatically and locked in coordinated transport-industry measures; independent summaries track big reductions in exceedance days and tons of pollutants avoided.

5) Chile’s stove-replacement & decontamination plans.

Santiago’s push to replace wood-burning stoves and enforce regional decontamination plans cut indoor exposures (PM₂.₅ personal exposure ↓ ~70% in pilot households) and supported broader ambient improvements.

6) Pakistan’s own kiln conversions (a homegrown bright spot).

Punjab’s shift to zig-zag brick kilns shows rapid, scalable cuts: studies and programmes report substantial PM/black-carbon reductions with better combustion and lower coal use; thousands of kilns have already converted—proof that enforcement + technical help works here.

The exportable playbook (adapted to Pakistan, 12-month horizon)

• Make triggers law, not tweets. Adopt a GRAP-style rule for every major city (AQI/PM₂.₅ thresholds → pre-declared actions for schools, worksites, transport, construction). This protects occupational security by keeping learning/earning predictable and safe. (Delhi’s GRAP shows the operating model.)

• Lock in cleaner fuels & tailpipes. Time-bound rollout of low-sulfur fuels, modern I/M (inspection & maintenance), and anti-tampering enforcement for DPF/AdBlue—borrowing India’s BS-VI leap as the benchmark.

• Finish the kiln transition. Verify 100% zig-zag compliance, publish monthly audit lists, and tie any credit/fuel support to continuous compliance. Build on local success to cut PM fast where people live and work.

• Tackle heating/cooking fuels for the poor. Pilot clean-fuel switches in high-exposure urban belts (schools/clinics/hostels first), taking a page from Ulaanbaatar for winter months. This is compassion in policy form.

• Measure, publish, act. The common denominator in every win is dense, credible monitoring and real-time public dashboards. If the number isn’t visible, it isn’t governable. (Beijing’s gains were inseparable from monitoring + enforcement.)

• Plan durability: money + audits. Ring-fence clean-air funds; publish enforcement ledgers (vehicles failed, kilns shut, CEMS uptime) and independent annual reviews—Mexico City/Chile show that long-running, audited plans outlast politics.

  
  

The occupational security bottom line

When air becomes safe by design, occupations—schooling, vending, construction, care—become safe again. That’s sustainability (cleaner tech and fuels), justice (protection for those most exposed), peace (rule-bound city functioning), compassion (health shields on bad-air days), and authenticity/accuracy (data people can trust) in action—not as rhetoric, but as routines.