Air pollution and the elites

Express Tribune

02-04-2025

Daud Khan is a retired UN staff based in Rome. He has degrees in economics from LSE and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar; Alishba Khan is a qualified Chartered Certified Accountant (UK) and is based in Islamabad
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Lahore is among the cities with the worst air pollution in the world; Islamabad is catching up; and even Karachi, despite its proximity to the sea and to the sea breeze, is impacted.
The consequences of air pollution are well known. Breathing the cocktail of toxic chemicals affects the membranes in the nose and lungs, restricts the absorption of oxygen and also enters into the blood and other organs. It is associated with strokes, cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer and arthritis. Babies and young children are particularly vulnerable, and there is strong evidence linking air pollution and permanent damage on the development of their brains.
The causes of the poor air quality in our cities are also well known. It includes transport and traffic; power plants, industrial units and factories, including brick kilns; and burning of crop stubble, other agriculture residues and solid municipal waste.
The actions needed to address the problem include reducing emission from traffic; from industrial sources; and from the burning of crop residues and municipal waste. These are well understood and have been set out in the scientific literature, in the popular press and even in Government policy documents.
If impacts, causes and solutions are known and understood, then why is no action being taken? The issue is particularly puzzling as there is adequate regulation and legislation to reduce air pollution substantially. Why are these laws and rules not enforced?
One reason could be due to a phenomenon referred to as "elite capture". Reforms that are good for the country as a whole are not undertaken because they negatively affect the wellbeing of a small and powerful minority (the elite) who control decision-making institution and the implementing agencies. Could elite capture be the reason why the problem of air pollution is not addressed?
Let us keep in mind that many of the richest and most powerful people in Pakistan live in Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Karachi. They are obviously aware of the health impacts on themselves and their families; and their daily lives are affected by periodic closure of schools, public offices and other facilities due to air pollution.
There are possibly two interlinked reasons for the inaction.
The first is that Government and other public institutions lack the capacity to implement action. Many Government employees at local level, where actions have to be taken, are averse to doing anything. A large proportion of these employees are political appointees, or have paid hefty bribes for a job. Many are ghost workers who only turn up once a month to collect their salaries. These employees may have little inclination to implement difficult and unpopular directives. In fact, it would simply be unreasonable to expect that a low level officer of the agriculture department would try and stop a farmer burning crop residues, or an employee of the industries department would try to shut down or impose a fine on a polluting brick factory.
A second reason could be that the educated urban elites, who understand the problems associated with air pollution and think that action is needed, are not really as powerful as they may appear. Yes, they may work in big companies and offices, hold important positions in the civil service or other Government institutions, or even be members of parliament. But when it comes to decision-making, others carry more weight. This could be the big landlords, factory owners, transport providers and those who formally or informally control services such as disposal of municipal waste.
So, what needs to be done so that effective steps will be taken in time to prevent yet another winter of discontent?
Clearly we need to bring in other actors into play – actors that would help address the issue of implementation capacity, as well as the issue of political will.
One such actor could be the private sector. In a previous article, we had argued for exploring the use of carbon offsets to pay farmers, industrial units or other polluters to reduce emissions. However, going down this path would require substantial work and time, as these instruments are relatively new in Pakistan.
Another option could be to involve civil society organisations, in particular those that cut across the urban-rural divide and the rich-poor divide. One such institution could be the religious leadership. It has often been argued that religious scholars, mullahs and other opinion-makers need to play a greater role in matters related to health, hygiene and drug abuse. In the same vein, it might be useful to enlist their help to explain to people the impacts of their behavior on air pollution.
Yet another option, one that would have a quicker impact, could be to set up a joint special taskforce with members from different institutions, and give them the mandate of reducing air pollution to levels that are in line with international guidelines. Such institutional arrangements have been successfully put in place at other times, such as after the 2005 earthquake and during the Covid pandemic.