Driving on the Ring Road, in the wee hours of a December morning, all that the eye can see is a dense blanket of grey smoke. Like a dystopian future from a sci-fi movie, visibility is extremely poor, and it’s impossible to see beyond a few feet in front of the car. It is as if we are under attack by the very air we are surrounded by.

The problem of pollution is not unique to us — other countries in the world such as China and India are facing similar issues. An ever increasing number of cars on the roads, unchecked factory emissions, and poor fuel quality are the prime culprits leading to smog.

Abid Omar, an industrialist and founder of the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative (PAQI), was based in Beijing since 2012, and had seen China’s air pollution crisis, when a visit to Karachi prompted him to bring an air quality monitor along. For, he had noticed alarming levels of pollution in the air. At that time, there was no data available on the issue, barring a 2016 WHO report that relied on decades-old data from just a few cities.

Omar decided that a community-led effort would be far more effective than lobbying with the government. Harnessing the power of ordinary citizens like his own friends and family, he distributed air quality monitors and asked them to start recording their results. All this culminated in a November 2017 New York Times article that broke the news about the smog situation in Pakistan.

“The Punjab government should declare this a public health emergency and deal with it accordingly,” Omar tells TNS. “We should recognise that poor fuel is the main culprit, and remedy it immediately. Long term measures include getting the necessary technical competence at the Environment Protection Department (EPD) to monitor and place effective checks on emissions from industry, agriculture, and transportation, and urban waste.”

There is hope for our country, as seen through China’s battle with smog. “Beijing used to be the poster boy for smog and toxic air quality, but is no longer even in the top 20 most polluted cities,” says Dawar Butt, from Climate Action Pakistan and PAQI. “It all happened because of coordination between various ministries and local departments, with government strictly enforcing set standards and penalising major polluters as well as incentivising greater compliance.”

The Chinese efforts have been focused on reducing sulfur dioxide emissions, which have shown drastic declines in pollutants recorded last winter.

Throats and eyes burn when exposed to the air outside, and both children and adults are falling sick with coughs and colds. When smog is at its worst, parents often question whether sending their little, vulnerable children to school is worth the risk. These are just some of the short term effects of smog that are easily observable.

Ahmed Rafay Alam, a prominent lawyer and environmental scholar, filed a writ petition on November 4 before the Lahore High Court (LHC), on behalf of his school-going daughter Leila and her friends. The public interest environment petition alleged that the Punjab Environmental Protection Council (PEPC) and the Environmental Protection Agency, Punjab (EPA) had under-reported the Air Quality Index measurement of air pollution, and asked the court to order the EPA to provide to the public real-time air quality data from all of its monitoring stations. The petitioners also requested the court to direct the PEPC to reconsider the air pollution and smog policy and action plan for the Punjab.

In October 2019, Hassan Zaidi started The Indoor Forest, which manufactures air purifiers locally at a significantly lower price point (Rs 16,000). What started out as an experiment meant only for friends and family has gained so much attention and demand that the original 100 units Zaidi prepared sold out instantly.

To step outside, people have been forced to procure imported and hard-to-find PM 2.5 breathing masks equipped with filters that can block the particulate matter which are a complex combination of pollutants such as dust, pollen, and smoke. The tiny particles have been linked to cancer and heart attacks in the long term, as well as respiratory illnesses. These masks are often a luxury, not easily available or affordable for the public at large, and their effectiveness is imperfect. Yet, life must go on for the people in Lahore where pollution during the winter months is at its apex.

Raza Goraya, one of the founders of Clean Air Campaign Pakistan (CACP), points out that “every four minutes a person dies in Pakistan because of air pollution.” Distressed by the situation, he felt that it was time to speak up, raise our voice to spread awareness, and start a campaign to clean our air.” The CACP has used social media as a platform to spread awareness about the ill-effects of smog, posting infographics on AQI readings of the day and footage submitted by subscribers of conditions outside.

According to Goraya, “The government recently took the issue of air quality with some seriousness, and formed a smog committee to address the crisis. Since vehicles are the largest source of air pollution, the prime minister announced that Pakistan would be shifting to Euro 4 and Euro 5 grade oil within the next 12 months. This was one of the primary demands of clean air campaigners.”

Many mistakenly assume that brick kilns and seasonal rice crop burning are the reasons behind smog. A 2018 report by the Punjab government’s Agriculture Department and UN Food and Agriculture Organization concluded that “the main sectors for air pollution emissions in the Punjab are power, industry and transport, which together account for 80 percent of the contributions in air pollutant emission.”

In India, where the situation is similarly dire, the Supreme Court has called on Delhi’s government to come up with a plan to install air purifying towers across the city within 10 days. The judges said the court held the federal and local governments responsible for failing to control crop burning by farmers in Delhi and neighbouring states. Emergency actions were taken by the Delhi state government recently when schools were shut down for a week in response to toxic smog levels, and the government announced distribution of 5 million anti-pollution masks to students across the city.

With the addition of the “fifth season,” as smog is now called, the affluent people have started to use the highly expensive air purifiers, in their attempt to maintain some semblance of a normal life at least indoors.

Imported air purifiers are a hefty investment, and cost somewhere around Rs 40,000-50,000. Freight costs, customs duties and taxes have made these devices a luxury item that could only be afforded by the upper classes.

But there is hope for the common man too. In October 2019, Hassan Zaidi started The Indoor Forest, which manufactures air purifiers locally at a significantly lower price point (Rs 16,000). What started out as an experiment meant only for friends and family has gained so much attention and demand that the original 100 units Zaidi prepared sold out instantly.

Zaidi was initially cautious, but his venture has become so successful that he now sells imported air quality monitors along with his indigenously made air purifiers.

Amnesty International released an Urgent Action statement on November 22 with regard to air quality in Pakistan, which stated: “Health is a key human right indispensable to exercise other human rights and is recognized in numerous international treaties that Pakistan has ratified, including, Article 12.1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Articles 11.1 (f) and 12 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women of 1979 and Article 24 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child of 1989. Failing to adequately respect, protect and fulfill the right to health would amount to a human rights violation.”

The statement pointed out that the particularly vulnerable position of low-income workers such as labourers, construction workers and farmhands, and marginalised groups forces them to be exposed to hazardous air throughout the day.

“The government’s inadequate response to smog in Lahore raises significant human rights concerns. The hazardous air is putting everyone’s right to health at risk,” says Rimmel Mohydin, South Asia Campaigner at Amnesty International.

In Pakistan, the movement against smog has been led by civil society and private citizens. The situation is dire as children are growing up in a life under captivity, trapped indoors both at home and in school because of the hazardous air outside. Those less fortunate sadly lack both the awareness of smog’s ill-effects and the resources to equip themselves against it. A future where the global climate crisis produces environmental refugees is easily imaginable given the current situation. After all, how do you protect yourself from the very air you breathe?