The season of floods and landslides will soon be replaced by winter air pollution that will make breathing hazardous to health. By the time spring returns next year, it will be the wildfire season. Then it will be time once more for monsoon floods.

Overlapping these chronic crises and amplifying their impact are background dangers of climate breakdown, earthquakes and mountain collapses. We might as well start getting used to casading hazards.

Both the government and the public have the tendency to take each disaster as it comes. It is a fatalist culture in which we hope for the best, but do not prepare for the worst.

Changing that culture means preparing to be prepared, not waiting till a disaster hits, but anticipating them. We can take mitigation measures now to minimise the impact of wildfires and floods next year and beyond.

This week, the government officially ended search and rescue for the over 5,200 still missing in the 26 August disaster, to concentrate on rehabilitation and reconstruction. The focus has shifted to safely relocating and providing sustainable livelihoods for over displaced 30,000 people.

The priority should be to help families of the dead and missing to obstain death certificates so they can have closure, access relief, compensation, get property papers, citizenship documents, and insurance. This work cannot be delayed by bureaucracy.

We must prepare also for the winter smog season. Farmers in both Punjabs are burning post-harvest rice stalks, and it is already visible in infrared NASA satellite images.

Prevailing winds will blow that smoke our way carrying with it Diwali fireworks smoke. This will add to winter inversion that will trap Kathmandu Valley’s smog.

Scientists have analysed pollution particles in Kathmandu and found that half of it is actually transboundary. It will be another winter of silent emergencies and added fatalities due to asthma, COPD, pneumonia and other chronic ailments.

Long-term residents of Kathmandu Valley have their lifespans cut by 3.5 years due to air pollution, which adds 41,000 more deaths per year in Nepal. All this is no surprise: scientists have been warning about it for decades. What is surprising is the lack of action to improve air quality.

POLLUTION PERCEPTION

A pollution perception survey of 1,200 residents of Kathmandu Valley by the newly-launched TAZA initiative this week showed that over 80% of respondents found air quality extremely hazardous or hazardous. They blamed vehicle exhaust, open burning and industries as major sources.

The survey did not distinguish between visible and invisible pollution. Besides black smoke from diesel exhaust of brick kilns, there are 1.3 million motorcycles in Kathmandu which are emitting highly toxic carbon monoxide, ozone and other gases that are invisible and odourless.

In the survey, nearly 60% called out governments for not doing anything to clean up the air. They wanted to know what was happening to the pollution tax and now green tax that the public has been paying for years, which were supposed to pay for clean energy. 

The key question is: why has such a high level of awareness not translated into action? Perhaps awareness has not put enough public pressure on politicians to act.

If so, why not on something that is literally a matter of their lives cut short? There are rallies in the streets protesting loan sharks, the cooperatives scam or political corruption, but no demonstrations demanding cleaner air.

Public awareness does not automatically lead to behaviour change. Citizens need to be given alternatives that are cleaner, accessible and affordable by subsidising electric transport and to power household appliances. It will reduce Nepal’s petroleum import bill, and the health benefits will be a bonus.

The survey has shown that air pollution is the single biggest worry of Kathmandu’s citizens, and those in the corridors of power need to recognise this and respond with measures to reduce it. Air pollution, solid waste management and other municipal issues are high on the agenda during election campaigns, but are almost entirely ignored once politicians are elected.

Cleaning up patronage politics, the bureaucracy and private sector is a priority of Prime Minister Balendra Shah’s government. Ensuring that the air all of us breathe is not killing us should be even more urgent.

Sonia Awale