The Pakistan Air Quality Initiative’s report ‘Air Pollution: A National Landscape Report on Health Risks, Sources and Solutions’ has apparently pointed out the obvious: that polluting activities are the main causes of pollution, that the winter smog that has developed of late is caused by local economic activity and urban design, in Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi-Islamabad and Gujranwala. More controversially though, it has not blamed the smog on Indian farmers burning their stubble, which seems to be an article of faith for the Punjab Environmental Protection Agency. The PEPA spokesman has said that PAQI does not have access to the data it claims to have used. PAQI says the report is based on satellite-based aerosol sets, chemical transport modelling and real-time monitoring. However, the spokesman did not even to claim that the Agency had any alternate data of its own. In other words, the citizen was supposed to reject claims saying they were based on data in favour of claims which did not even claim to be based on data.
The EPA’s insistence that smog was caused by cross-border burning of stubble seems both politically motivated and a cop-out. After all, if the smog can be blamed on something out of the government’s control, then the government (and the Agency) cannot be blamed for neglecting their duty. Which is precisely what the PAQI says is happening. The report mentions a number of steps which should be taken, with transportation, industry and brick kilns providing the overwhelming majority of pollutants. The report does not mention it, but without a swift mass transition to electric vehicles, it will not be possible to eliminate the smog (it does speak of the need for conversion, but just as one of the measures). The EPA is speaking of installing emission-control equipment, saying that 80 percent of industries had done so.
The PEPA should either get hold of data of its own, or be ready to rely on that provided by others. It must stop acting as a cheerleader for industry and other polluters, because the crisis is only going to get worse. The report rejected the one-size-fits-all solutions in favour of a specific targeted solution for each city. This may be the source of the EPA’s concern: it needs a simple explanation, like ‘cross-border stubble burning’, for a complex phenomenon.
