LAHORE: The Punjab government believes that its “strong political will” would comprehensively address the impacts of climate change in the years to come.

“To address the impacts of climate change, a strong political will is needed, which Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has. Thus, we will eradicate smog and meet other challenges related to air pollution and else,” Senior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb told the moot on tackling the issue of air pollution at the Expo Centre here on Saturday as part of Dawn Media’s ‘Breathe Pakistan’ initiative.

The minister, who also holds the portfolio of the environment ministry, congratulated DawnMedia for taking this “much-needed initiative”, saying that other media groups should also come forward and form a consortium to ensure clean air for all citizens of the country.

She talked about how, after coming to power early last year, the Punjab CM set her focus on the environment – eradication of smog and air pollution.

Senior minister details interventions to improve Lahore’s worsening air quality

“My government was shocked to see the severity of the air quality issue, as it turned out to be a year-long phenomenon. Then we started off with a multi-sectoral approach to climate change.”

She said the CM’s zero-tolerance policy helped the government system perform in this regard.

“The AQ (air quality) level of Lahore and elsewhere in Punjab was not encouraging, thus forcing us to go for certain interventions,” she said, and talked about a number of initiatives, including a total revamp of the legal and administrative machinery of the environment protection force.

“Now we have a state-of-the-art environmental protection agency.”

Similarly, before the PML-N came to power last year, Punjab had two non-functional AQ monitors. “Now we have 41 air monitors installed across Punjab. By 2026 we will have 100 across Punjab.”

Ms Aurangzeb said the lack of data regarding air pollution highlighted the phenomenon of transboundary pollution. Blaming stubble burning as a major contributor to smog, she said: “The major seasonal contributor to high AQI levels in Lahore, Multan and elsewhere is the easterly wind corridor from India that plays a critical role and is a major contributor to seasonal AQI levels. We had started a transboundary arrangement, but because of recent events, we may take this forward with the UN or World Bank.”

She said that stubble burning zones were mapped, investment was made in the mechanisation of agriculture, and drone monitoring for industrial units was carried out. Around 11,000 brick kilns across Punjab were also mapped, and those without zigzag technology were sealed. “We don’t like to seal kilns, but we have to do so for clean air,” she added.

She said the ‘Climate Change Vision 2025’ put out by her government underlined the policy and action plan for the next 10 years. “Localisation of smog mitigation was critical to the intervention, so we took a multi-sectoral approach to smog mitigation,” she said, noting smog guns were imported two months ago and deployed in Lahore.

She said the Punjab government introduced vehicle fitness certificates for the “first time ever” in the province. “We are using safe city cameras to identify smoke coming from cars. We have a Punjab Clean Air Programme, which also has a buy-back policy for old vehicles, two-wheelers and three-wheelers. For the first time ever, we have mobile fuel testing labs. The EPA Punjab has started fuel testing to test petrol at petrol stations in Punjab. In the last eight months, 1,100 electric buses have arrived in Punjab.”

Ms Aurangzeb also reflected on her recent visit to Japan and talked about road cleanliness there. “The entire waste management in Japan is for segregated waste, so that technology cannot be brought to Pakistan. So now we’re going to China for that technology and waste incinerators. We’ve started this in schools. We thought schools would be the right place to start this and embed it into our curriculum. After Oct 30, the schools have to keep five recycling bins at schools mandatorily,” she said and also talked about the Suthra Punjab programme, terming it a major initiative towards cleanliness in the province.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2025