Daily Times

PTI government has now been in office for almost a year and a half. Though this time is not long enough to start measuring the effects of any policy, it is indeed more than enough to see if the journey is in the right direction and if it has even started. The government has rightly addressed the planning and policy aspect that may bring long-term solutions to problems. Unfortunately, our decision makers have been fond of short-term solutions and decline to work, especially on long-term steps.

In 1960s when some experts indicated that the population growth in the country was at an alarming rate, their view was not taken seriously because the problem was forecasted to emerge in the long term. It should not be forgotten that long-term in nations’ timelines comes very early. So here we are after 50 years with an extremely difficult situation regarding the ticking population bomb.

Similar has been the case with environmental issues. We contaminated our waters on the cost of immediate gains in industry, urbanisation and agriculture, and the result is not only shortage of water but non-availability of drinking water. We polluted the air we breathe with the smoke emitted from our vehicles, industries, houses and grain fields. Now we have our major cities and economic hubs choked, making living expensive and miserable. We continued to poison our neighbourhood with all the solid waste we produced. Gradually, types and amounts of waste increased so much that all our open spaces, roadsides and even water bodies had waste dumped on them.

The chief of Seattle said in 1854 that if the civilisation keeps on polluting, they’ll one day drown in their own waste in their own beds. Alas, this situation is not far for people in Pakistan. People are just trying to survive rather than live under self-created harsh environmental hazards; the small problems that were considered harmless are now posing serious threats to life because the unforeseen long term has arrived.

It can rightly be feared that climate change would act as a catalyst when combined with our environmental pollution issues. Climate change as itself may be hugely harmful but we should not forget that developed nations are seen to be least affected from it. Economic means to mitigate or combat climate change effects are not to give unnecessary credit, but even the lowest degree of environmental pollutants should be cheered. In our case, the environmental conditions would become just harsher and more unbearable when in contact with climate change. Smog in Lahore is just a simple but a very clear example.

It is not a new phenomenon. Queen Eleanor of England became so sick due to coal fumes that she had to leave town to go to Nottingham Castle, leading King Edward, her son, to ban coal burning in the year 1306. Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun mentioned deteriorating air quality in cities in year 1390 in his book Muqaddimah. In 1880, smoke was mentioned in some newspapers in England. The term ‘smog’ was coined by Dr Henry Antoine Des Voeux in his 1905 paper, “Fog and Smoke”. 1952’s famous London smog of four days resulted in death of four thousand people with another eight thousand deaths in coming weeks.

In our case, the environmental conditions would become just harsher and more unbearable when in contact with climate change

Lahore is a major city and an economic engine of the Punjab province. It has been observed that with passage of time the city has lost its drinkable water; increased sales of bottled water are a very clear indicator. It has ruined its River Ravi with wastewater, and it has dumped its waste in the open spaces, and especially in the periphery of the city. We should expect that within the next decade the city’s inhabitants would have to pay a heavy price as cost of living if they choose to.

In Pakistan we may have very intelligent, creative and educated people but we are still unable to solve our problems, especially environment related ones. Preparation of policies and plans has never been a problem, and our five-yeas development plans used to be good examples of that. Our main problem is regarding prioritising our actions and implementing them.

Environmental issues can be dealt in three stages: pre-caution, mitigation and adaptation. Cost of these measures rise exponentially. Pre-caution is taken in order to avert a certain disaster due to conditions that may become uncontrollable in future. In the case of Lahore smog, it could have been planned urbanisation, industrialisation and introduction of better public transport systems in the city. Unfortunately, that stage has passed and there is no way now to roll it back. Our only chance is to limit it and with time decrease it through a better public transport network, increased public awareness and better control of industrial emissions. However, all these could be achieved in long term, the term that we don’t bother about and only do when the right step is taken in the right direction.

We are now more at a mitigation stage where we are trying to ban open burning and praying for high winds. The cost of limiting mobility related and industrial activities is much higher than what would have been at pre-cautionary stage. Mitigation measures always seek higher financial investments and rarely help to mitigate the problem completely. Sooner or later, we will be landing in the last stage where people would be left to live under miserable conditions.

Solutions are not working in our favour due to several factors. Our self-perceived high financial costs are to blame. However, it must be remembered that the great scholar from Harvard Dr Michael Porter is clearly proving since last the thirty years that any investment towards environmental improvement, in fact, stimulates the economic growth. While we hesitate to invest in improving our water, wastewater, solid waste and air pollution we forget the income lost due to lost working hours of ill-managed population, decreased efficiency and damage to infrastructure.

There is certainly no need to conduct new studies to evaluate such impacts; the world has many studies on these issues. We love to do studies and highly intellectual sessions with everyone claiming to be an expert on everything. Our reflexes against any problem initiates the formation of a committee and hiring of advisers. Not a bad move if advisers and committees have real experts on the matter and they have any authority to implement the right decisions. Let us not try to solve all the problems at same time. Holistic and integrated approaches are good jargons, but work needs to be done on each and every single aspect with full dedication. Every section of a road has to be of a certain quality to declare the entire road a motorway.

The writer is working as a senior specialist at the Urban Unit Lahore