LAHORE:
Despite a growing pile of air quality policies, Lahore’s smog crisis continues to worsen as weak implementation, poor inter-ministerial coordination and ineffective public communication block meaningful action, experts warned at a seminar.
They warned that transport remains the city’s biggest polluter, that stubble burning persists despite subsidies, and that citizens lack the incentives and infrastructure needed to adopt low-emission mobility habits.
They emphasized that without long-term planning and a shift from reactive measures to sustainable enforcement and behavioral change, the air quality emergency in Punjab will only get worse.
Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) hosted the seminar on Smog Mitigation, Resilience and Feasibility of Carbon Credits in collaboration with the Rasta Competitive Research Grants Program.
The event brought together researchers and policymakers to examine the worsening smog crisis in Lahore, sectoral emissions and emerging behaviors towards sustainable mobility.
In her presentation, Dr Aqsa Shabbir emphasized that Punjab must move away from reactive measures – such as one-off closures – and towards long-term preventative strategies.
She said Lahore’s air quality began to deteriorate rapidly after industrial expansion in the 1990s, with smog becoming a recurring emergency in 2016.
Since then, 12 policy documents have been produced, including the Punjab Clean Air Policy (2023), Punjab Action Plan for Climate Resilience (2024) and Smog Control Strategy (2024-25), but weak implementation, inadequate monitoring and limited institutional capacity remain the biggest obstacles, she said.
Dr Shabbir said the transport sector contributes 83 per cent of Lahore’s emissions, followed by industry and agriculture. Although initiatives such as vehicle inspection centers, fuel quality monitoring and pro-electric vehicle policies look promising on paper, gaps in coordination – particularly between the transportation and energy departments – limit progress.
