KARACHI: Sharing data on Karachi’s deteriorating air quality and how it’s impacting millions of lives, environmentalists and other experts at a seminar on Wednesday called upon the government to restart vehicular emission control programme and increase the city’s vegetation cover with the help of native species.

They also shared concern over the many coal-based development projects being initiated in the country without proper evaluation of their environmental impact as well as the huge coal dumps one could see in the city that had seriously compromised public health.

The seminar, “Ambient air quality and climate change: a case of Karachi”, was organised by the National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH) and Environmental Management Consultants-Pakistan (EMC).

Urbanisation lacks environmental sensitivities, experts say

Most speakers at the programme agreed that the city’s environmental woes had much to do with the ‘toothless’ Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) and development led by vested interests. They were of the opinion that no business or industry would submit to the law unless the government decided to impose its writ.

“Karachi’s biggest problem is its fast-paced urbanisation lacking environmental sensitivities ... we have politicised our economy, our social values and even our environment,” said Saquib Ejaz Hussain, an expert on air quality working with the EMC.

Pollution figures

Citing various studies and data from international organisations, Mr Hussain said the World Health Organisation ranked Karachi as the world’s fifth most polluted city in 2006. A 2013 study of the Aga Khan University Hospital linked a striking rise in cardiovascular diseases to higher levels of air pollutants, he added.

“The study showed that PM2.5 [particles that are so small that they can get into the lungs and potentially cause serious health problems] levels [calculated at Korangi and Tibet Centre] were extraordinarily high and exceeded WHO’s 24-hour air quality guideline almost every day and often by a factor greater than five-fold,” he said.

Karachi has neither air quality index (that represents air quality) nor any law on tree cutting, according to him. He criticised the Sindh government for reducing the PM2.5 level from 70µg/m³ (given in the National Environmental Quality Standards) to 40 µg/m³ for 24-hour monitoring in the Sindh Environmental Quality Standards to ‘support’ a thermal power project in Jamshoro, where, he said, the air quality was already very poor.

“It [the Sindh government] has completely removed the clause on the annual average required for PM2.5,” he added.

It was further said that a number of coal-based projects were coming up though there was no policy for waste (ash) disposal, which could turn into a health disaster as it would become part of the environment.

Former director general of the federal Environment Protection Agency (EPA) Asif Shuja Khan said Karachi had been completely ‘concretised’ and highlighted the need for steps to reduce the urban heat island effect.

He also spoke in detail about the steps he had taken as an EPA official.

Mir Shabbar Ali, an expert on transport engineering associated with NED University of Engineering and Technology, underlined the need for more research on traffic issues that could lead to policy development.

Some participants, alarmed over the country’s high growth rate, were of the opinion that the environmental challenge could be addressed effectively only if the government brought a policy on family planning.

They also expressed concern over lack of the provincial government’s financial support to the municipal corporations of Karachi and Hyderabad.

They demanded removal of coal dumps, particularly from the KPT coal yard, that they said were affecting public health.

Other speakers, including Mahmood Akhtar Cheema of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Dr Arshad Ali Baig, senior environmentalist, Shams Memon, former environment secretary and Farzana Altaf, the incumbent director general of the federal EPA, regretted lack of implementation of environmental laws and said small steps with public support could bring about a big change.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2017