ISLAMABAD: Urban air pollution across Pakistan, kills 22,000 inhabitants annually, as acknowledged officially, with the dilemma gradually going beyond control and situation continue worsening.
Over the years, the level of urban air pollution continued rising reason being the poorly tuned up vehicles, industrial emission as well as air contamination by others means like brick kilns, waste burning in open and poorly maintained roads infrastructure in cities.
The suspended particulate matter mixed with smoke having sulphur, CO, CO2 and other pollutants, becomes more harmful as these minor particles not only travel to hundreds of kilometers but also directly travel to human lungs and cause serious diseases like bronchitis, nausea, lungs cancer and even pre-mature deaths.
The situation is well known to almost every policy makers in the government and number of steps have already been taken. But, the people have yet to witness a worth mentioning improvement.
Secretary Ministry of Environment, Javed Malik also acknowledged at a workshop couple of days back that 22,000 Pakistanis die every year due to urban air pollution.
Though number of organizations are working on various initiatives but, air pollution continues to persist and even on the roads of federal capital, during afternoon hours the heavy traffic plying on Kashmir highway and express way massively pollute air.
In an effort, Pakistan Clean Air Network (PCAN) and Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities Center (CAI – Asia), in collaboration with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, Ministry of Environment and United Nations Environment Programme’s project Partnership for Cleaner Fuels and Vehicles (PCFV), recently organized a workshop to raise awareness regarding use of cleaner fuels.
The participants discussed importance of low sulphur fuel and to develop a road map for introduction of cleaner fuel and vehicular technology and setting up of concurrent vehicle standards to improve air quality in Pakistan.
It was acknowledged as a fact that air pollution has emerged as one of the major environmental issues contributing to environmental degradation for which the annual losses have been calculated to the tune of Rs 365 billion by a World Bank report.
Obviously things are much more serious on the environmental front and the pace of degradation is very high for which we need to take drastic preventive measures.
It is regrettable that for saving the cost of production the industries do not make necessary investment in pollution control and shift this cost to government in the form of higher health budget.
Rapid urbanization is another problem as pakistan has been reckoned among the fastest urbanizing countries in South Asia.
The government on its part has started Clean Air Program and number of other initiatives including the CNG buses projects wherein around 10,000 CNG buses will be provided under a project to promote public transportation.
This problems calls upon all stakeholders to join hands as international experts like Herbert Fabian, from CAI-Asia, see it going beyond redressal in coming days in view of the explosive growth of vehicles in Asian countries.
Due to this rising number of vehicles and poor maintenance, Fabian opines, the people are more exposed to air pollution and vulnerable to morbidity and mortality.
The Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles (PCFV) was launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in September 2002 by a group of committed partners from governments, international organisations, industry, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
The PCFV started working in February 2003 and has over 90 member organisations including governments, civil societies, private sector, international organisations and institutions of higher learning.
