AFP :
From banning tuk-tuks and barbecues to demolishing old brick kilns, Pakistan’s government is pushing a series of measures to fight record-breaking smog.
But environmental activists and experts warn that the efforts hardly begin to fix a problem that leaves the country choking every winter, with Punjab, a region of almost 130 million people bordering India, bearing the brunt of it.
A mix of low-grade fuel emissions from factories and vehicles, exacerbated by agricultural stubble burning, blanket the city each winter, trapped by cooler temperatures and slow-moving winds.
The UN food agency FAO pinpoints transport as the main source of air pollutant emissions, followed by industry and agriculture.
Punjab minister Marriyum Aurangzeb, who has declared a “war against smog,” has deployed police to fine farmers who use the slash-and-burn technique.
Officials are also targeting companies that fail to comply with orders to modernize their infrastructure.
“It is a good starting point,” the Pakistan Air Quality Experts (PAQx) group, a coalition of 27 professionals spanning public health, environmental science, law, and economics, wrote in a letter to the government.
But more urgent action was necessary against the worst polluters, the group said, suggesting immediate curbs on heavy vehicles circulating at certain hours or a nation-wide shutdown of all brick kilns, old and new.
Ahmad Rafay Alam, one of Pakistan’s leading environment lawyers, said the government has “not understood the problem completely.”