Under the current PML-N leadership, Lahore, once known as the city of gardens, is now transformed into a city of concrete. “It is sad to see the city of my birth turn into such an ugly place — all over the world city governments are trying to protect green spaces and here all the greenery is being removed to build bigger roads,” says Jawad Akram, a Pakistani banker who lives in New York and recently visited Lahore.

At the rate our population is growing, building signal free corridors, expanding roads and creating fly-overs and underpasses in the city centre is not the solution. Already there are more and more vehicles on the roads of the expanding mega city of Lahore. Then there is the problem of the increased urban heat island effect caused by the excess of tarmac and concrete, which absorb emitted heat. As climate change is expected to bring about higher temperatures globally, the impacts of urban heat islands will become worse in the near future.

Already Karachi has experienced deadly heat waves — is Lahore going to follow this summer? In recent months, all the digging of roads and heavy construction has led to increased air pollution and despite a mild winter, there has been a pandemic of flu viruses spreading across the city.

The Punjab government turns a blind eye to its flawed growth strategy

Even the Punjab government’s current work on providing a public transportation system called the “Orange Line”, an overhead metro rail system, has become highly controversial. Residents of Lahore have been protesting regularly against the destruction of old neighbourhoods that will come about in order to build the overhead metro. According to Ajaz Anwar, a well-known artist and retired professor, “Lahore is now a mega city; any city of more than 10 million becomes mega city — it needs a mass transit system. However, all the modern systems of mass transit are underground as in Berlin, London, New York and recently in New Delhi, which is culturally not very different from us. This should have been done underground — it is certainly expensive but how it is done internationally is to build 10 miles at a time; to build it slowly. Building it overland destroys historic districts plus it results in the cutting of lots of trees and green spaces. When it is done underground, monuments overland are not disturbed so there is no need for acquiring land or giving out compensation.”

Ajaz Anwar is convinced that building one or two lines will not make a dent in Lahore’s expanding traffic. In London there is an entire underground network and there is interconnectivity. “There is no interconnectivity between the Metro bus and the Orange Line.” As for the signal free corridors that have recently been constructed, he points out, “civilised countries recognise the right of pedestrians — signal free means the traffic won’t stop, so how will people cross the roads? In many cities abroad there are also dedicated bicycle lanes which are nowhere to be found in Lahore.” In Ajaz Anwar’s opinion as the city grows, eventually both the Metro bus lanes and the Orange Line will have to be demolished and an underground system built. “These are not gifts from China or Turkey, they are being built with heavy loans. Our grandchildren will have to pay for these. Lahore is Pakistan’s most historical city and its character is being destroyed.”

While groups like Lahore Bachao Tehreek and the Lahore Conservation Society continue to protest against this unsustainable Dubai style of development which includes a massive theme park right in front of the historical Badshahi Mosque, construction goes on unabated as the Punjab government turns a deaf ear. The Punjab Environment Protection Council hasn’t even met since it was notified in 2012. It is supposed to be chaired by the chief minister of the province, Shahbaz Sharif who is intent on transforming its capital into a concrete monstrosity. The Punjab Growth Strategy (2014-2018) has no mention of environmental protection or climate change — while all over the world the focus is now on “climate resilient development.” How can the Punjab become a “secure, economically vibrant, industrialised and knowledge-based province” when it does not even recognise the impacts of climate change like flooding, droughts, increased water scarcity and warmer temperatures in cities and the associated health risks?

As water expert Khalid Mohtadullah pointed out at a policy dialogue on Punjab’s growth policies and strategies in Lahore last week, “Our glaciers are bound to melt and we will face extreme events like floods and droughts. I don’t see in this strategy the ways and means to deal with shrinking water supplies … we need to see how we can better manage our ground water; reservoirs are badly needed to store water. We need to store more with less water.” There is also no mention of disaster risk reduction in the strategy despite disastrous annual flooding in the south of Punjab.

Dr Ijaz Nabi, the economist who helped prepare the Punjab growth strategy admitted that “there are no explicit linkages of climate change with the growth strategy”. This is where LEAD-Pakistan, the NGO which hosted the policy dialogue in Lahore, hopes to step in by advising the Punjab government on formulating a provincial climate change policy. This will be done at the Planning and Development department and the first meeting was held recently on how to include climate change in the Punjab’s growth agenda.

It might be the case of too little and too late, but according to environmental lawyer Rafay Alam, this is the correct step since with the passing of the 18th amendment, three provinces (namely Punjab, Balochistan and KP) have passed new laws which allow them to make rules regarding the implementation of international climate treaties like the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.

“I think LEAD is doing a good thing for capacity development in the Punjab. There is no need for a separate climate department in the province; climate has to be worked into agriculture, disaster management, water, etc. Each department needs to have climate awareness and a climate plan. The best place to park this is in the Planning and Development department,” said Alam.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, January 24th, 2016