Toxic smog in India and Pakistan: Shared crisis, shared solution?

With the onset of winter, deadly smog is posing a serious threat to New Delhi and Lahore.

In Pakistan's cultural capital, thousands of residents have fallen sick and respiratory diseases are on the rise. Lahore, home to 14 million people, recently recorded an air quality index (AQI) score of over 1,100 (anything over 300 is considered hazardous), making it the world's most polluted city.

Authorities in Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province, have been forced to shut down schools in multiple cities this week. Millions fear a complete lockdown could be coming.

Hundreds of miles away, New Delhi in India faces its own crisis. Smog-related illnesses are rising, while farm fires and high-emission fuels have sent air pollution levels surging.

Desperate authorities are likely to experiment with controversial measures such as artificial rain, despite little evidence of past success.

As conditions worsen in both countries, Pakistan has called for a "joint smog mitigation plan" with India. Can coordinated measures help address a common crisis? There is plenty at stake for both sides.

Long-standing health risks

The public health consequences of this crisis cannot be addressed in isolation.

Pollution is one of India's biggest health threats, with New Delhi residents losing up to 8.5 years in life expectancy because of it.

This challenge could persist if India and Pakistan treat air pollution as a largely local or national emergency, rather than a transnational issue.

Research has shown that distinct wind patterns can escalate air pollution beyond national boundaries, making cross-border coordination critical to reducing smog intensity in the long run.

Both sides also face the common challenge of stubble burning in their respective Punjab provinces. This occurs when farmers set fire to crop debris, exacerbating winter smog and putting their populations at risk.

Economic concerns

Economic costs are another challenge. For India, businesses incur annual losses worth $95 billion from rampant air pollution, while associated health risks exact a heavy toll on the Indian economy.

The stakes are increasingly high this year. For instance, in order for New Delhi to curb vehicular emissions and smog, it would need an integrated transportation system. Implementing this would be both costly and time-consuming.

Pakistan also faces few cost-effective solutions. In order to control vehicle emissions – a key smog contributor – the country may need to make the expensive transition towards cleaner fuel.

However, Pakistan is currently in the throes of an energy crisis that limits its potential to invest. Similarly, an emission-friendly overhaul of Lahore's transportation system would be easier said than done. The shift towards electric vehicles would demand sizable financial subsidies.

Given that deteriorating air quality carries considerable economic and health costs for both countries, they have a shared interest in promoting anti-smog efforts.

Joint action needed

So what could an effective pollution mitigation strategy look like? The World Bank-backed Science Policy Dialogue (SPD) offers some clues.

Through a series of meetings, government representatives from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal have expressed willingness to collaborate on air quality forecasting, data-sharing, and transboundary approaches to airshed management.

Airsheds are areas that capture pollutants and promote their spread across borders. Given that Lahore and New Delhi each have these problematic airsheds, India and Pakistan have a pressing interest in endorsing SPD consultations and signing up for an agreement on air quality management.

Utilising SPD's framework for smog control could yield several benefits, such as diverse funding options and region-wide coordination on air pollution.

On funding, SPD encourages assistance from a range of international development partners such as the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the United Nations, Swiss Development Cooperation, the Asian Development Bank, and private sector entities.

Since this assistance is tied to air quality progress at the national and local levels, it also serves as a performance incentive for Indian and Pakistani cities across multiple airsheds.

SPD consultations already incorporate several elements of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Malé Declaration on Control and Prevention of Air Pollution.

This agreement, reached in 1998, marked an important milestone for regional cooperation on transboundary air pollution, but has struggled to gain traction over the years.

Many challenges to cooperation

External funding was one challenge. Member states were largely dependent on assistance from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) for over a decade, but couldn't sustain that momentum through their national budgets.

Second, the agreement wasn't legally binding, and didn't include thorough accountability mechanisms to ensure compliance.

Third, it didn't specify which government agencies or ministries were responsible for maintaining air pollution controls, weakening the case for national and regional oversight.

Signatories have failed to convene for a SAARC summit since 2014, while tense India-Pakistan relations have made it difficult to institutionalise cross-border engagement on air pollution.

And yet, SPD could help overcome some of these diplomatic constraints. For instance, government representatives are already in talks to form a technical air quality committee to promote joint mitigation strategies. This consensus has endured despite diplomatic tensions.

"Since climate change does not recognise any national or political boundaries, we need an inclusive and collective approach that involves all governments," Kirti Vardhan Singh, India's Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, said this month.

Therefore, India and Pakistan would be well-advised to use a pre-existing framework to expand their representation on smog control. They can convene provincial and state-level working groups to coordinate on smog contingencies, and explore ways to advance regional monitoring and reporting mechanisms.

This is important, given that neither side can bring down deadly levels of air pollution on its own. Evidence suggests that pollution control measures, such as emission controls and industrial regulations, in one country can deliver better results if similar measures are coordinated across the border.

All this points to a joint mitigation plan that takes into account pollution inflows across national borders. With toxic air gripping northern India and eastern Pakistan, delayed action could risk prolonged smog exposure for their populations.

Thus understood, deteriorating air quality levels underline the urgency of transboundary cooperation. As India and Pakistan face considerable economic and health costs, local interventions may prove far from sufficient.