Dirty air kills both Indians and Pakistanis

India will not travel to Pakistan for the cricket Champions Trophy this year, and the two countries will play each other at a ‘neutral’ ground. 

Since cricket diplomacy has been bowled out, can climate diplomacy deliver a googly to be the gamechanger to mend relations between the estranged South Asian neighbours? 

They can start with addressing crossborder air pollution. The air quality index or AQI in Multan in November was over 2000, Lahore 1000, and Delhi 500 AQI. 

The average concentration of fine suspended particulate matter (PM2.5) is 11 times higher than the World Health Organization’s acceptable limit. In Pakistan, it is close to 15.

Every winter is a season of the gas-chamber in both countries. Thick smog brings life to a standstill in northern India and Pakistan.

Delhi set in motion Stage IV of the Graded Response Action Plan for pollution, closing schools, banning construction,  restricting trucks entering the city. In Lahore, officials declared pollution a ‘calamity’. 

In India over 40,000 people were treated for respiratory ailments. UNICEF in Pakistan attributed 12% of deaths in children under-5 in Pakistan to air pollution. 

A July 2024 study in the journal Lancet revealed that 11.5% of deaths in Delhi are linked to air pollution. A study by the Indian Council for Medical Research said there were 1.7 million deaths in India in 2019 due to dirty air. 

Pakistanis are on average living 3.9 years less because of poor air quality. In Lahore, they lose seven years of life. 

Smog is now called the ‘fifth season,’ but the air is bad all year round. In 2023, Delhi recorded only one day in which air was healthy enough to breathe. In 2024, the AQI never fell below 50 on any day, so air pollution is not a seasonal problem.

Come winter, India and Pakistan blame each other for the toxic air they share, but there is also growing awareness that the solution has to be collective.

Maryam Nawaz, Chief Minister of Punjab in Pakistan made a case for “climate diplomacy” in November. “This is not a political issue, it is a humanitarian one,” she said.

India’s Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Naresh Pal Gangwar at COP29 drew attention to the transboundary nature of air pollution. He noted that most countries in the region share the ‘Indo-Gangetic Airshed’, and stressed the need for collective action to tackle air pollution.

But little has changed on the ground. The relationship between India and Pakistan has remained strained, neither side has had a high commissioner in each other’s capitals since 2019. 

Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar's visit to Islamabad for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in October was a symbolic move forward, but there was no substantial conversation for further engagement.

As a health crisis gets worse, conversations on air pollution and for possible solutions may not be avoidable for too long.

“The wind knows no boundary,’’ says researcher Devindra Sharma in Punjab. “We can’t find solutions without talking across the border, especially for Punjab.”

Cities across South Asia compete for the most polluted air in the world. The hot-spot for the worst air in the world, 37 out of the 40 most polluted cities, are located in the region.

From Kathmandu to Lahore, Delhi to Dhaka residents live under a perpetual smog. This brown cloud across northern India and Pakistan during winter is visible from space.

“A unified, science driven approach by the Punjabs can be the answer to the region’s air quality crisis,’’ Jolly Masih, an agribusiness scientist at BML Munjal University in Gurgaon.

Track 2 dialogues between India and Pakistan space have tried to begin conversations around nuclear weapons, military and trade. But air pollution and climate change is still not included. 

In November, the UK-based nonprofit Conciliation Resources brought experts from India and Pakistan to Nairobi to focus on climate breakdown. Diplomats, experts and journalists recommended knowledge-sharing of best practices. 

Air quality and climate change is a possible area that can be ‘ring fenced’ from politics, says TCA Raghavan, India’s former high commissioner to Pakistan.

Unlike trade and water that can be political, air pollution does not have the baggage of earlier confidence-building measures for possible ‘ice breaking’. It also has the advantage of being for greater common good and has not been discussed politically before, unlike water.

“Air pollution is a subject with positive appeal with youth and the new generation and could be a win-win for both sides,” says Rakesh Sood, former Indian ambassador to Nepal.

India and Pakistan have banded together for a greater cause before. In 2020, they cooperated to fight a locust invasion that was destroying their crops on both sides. The mechanism requires monitoring in both countries and has survived bilateral tension. 

There is also a mechanism for sharing information about shared rivers, through the Indus Water Treaty which has functioned even during periods of strife. But there is no shared data on air pollution.

“The similarities in source profiles, geography and policy responses mean that there are clear opportunities for both countries to learn from each other,’’ says Bhargav Krishna of the Sustainable Futures Collaborative based in India.

In areas like transportation or crop burning, Pakistan can learn what has and hasn't worked in India to tailor a modified approach. For example, Indian farmers currently do not burn Basmati crop residue, unlike their counterparts in Pakistan.

Other possible areas of cooperation include early warning systems especially with the dust storms, suggested Bharati Chaturvedi of Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group. 

A study by Chintan titled ‘Saaf Saans — Breathing Clean: A Citizen Survey on Air Pollution’, surveyed 500 respondents in Delhi to find that 33 percent of residents claimed that they spent extra on doctor fees and medicine. Ninety percent of respondents said they were impacted by air pollution.

For India and Pakistan, where the bulk of those exposed to the fine particulate matter live on the margins, cooperation is especially critical. It can help save Indian lives and Pakistani lives. © Sapan News

 Mandira Nayar was until recently Deputy Chief of Bureau at The Week in Delhi.