Lahore’s Fifth Season: Why Are We Still Breathing Poison?

Every year, around the same time, Lahore begins to disappear. The familiar roads, buildings and neighbourhoods are covered in a thick layer of smog. The air becomes difficult to breathe, children are kept indoors, schools announce closures and hospitals see the consequences of another pollution season. For a few weeks, everyone talks about air quality. We check the AQI, share photographs of the city disappearing behind the haze and wait for the weather to change.

And then, eventually, the smog lifts. We go back to our routines, only to repeat the same conversation the following year.

On 29 October 2026, Lahore once again topped the IQAir ranking of the world’s most polluted major cities, recording an AQI of 419. Several other cities across Punjab were also experiencing hazardous air quality. This should concern us far more than it apparently does. We are not dealing with an unexpected natural event. We are dealing with a problem that has been building for years, despite repeated government assurances that it is being addressed.

The question is no longer why Lahore experiences smog every winter. We know many of the reasons. The real question is why we have failed to prevent it from returning.

Smog is not created overnight. It is the result of emissions accumulating throughout the year, combined with winter weather conditions that trap pollutants close to the ground. Vehicle exhaust, industrial emissions, brick kilns, construction dust, agricultural burning, household fuel consumption and the burning of municipal waste all contribute to the problem. When temperatures fall and winds become weaker, these pollutants remain suspended in the air we breathe.

There is often an attempt to place much of the blame on crop burning across the Indian border. Agricultural burning is undoubtedly part of the regional pollution problem, and cooperation between Pakistan and India is necessary. But we cannot continue using pollution across the border to explain away what is happening within our own cities. We have enough pollution sources of our own to confront.

The World Bank’s assessment under the Punjab Clean Air Programme identifies transport, residential fuel consumption, industrial activity, agriculture and waste burning among the significant contributors to air pollution. Its findings for Greater Lahore estimate that residential sources account for approximately 28 per cent of annual average PM2.5 pollution, while transport contributes around 24 per cent. These figures alone should tell us that smog cannot be tackled through a single intervention or by blaming one sector.

Consider Lahore’s roads. We have an ever-growing number of vehicles, many of which do not meet acceptable emission standards. Public transport remains insufficient to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding population. People rely on motorcycles, cars and older vehicles because affordable and reliable alternatives are not always available. We cannot expect people to abandon private transport without first giving them a practical alternative.

Our industrial sector presents another challenge. Factories, brick kilns and other industrial units must comply with environmental standards throughout the year, not merely when smog becomes a public concern. Construction activity adds enormous amounts of dust to an already polluted environment. The burning of plastic and municipal waste continues to contribute to toxic emissions. These are problems that require consistent monitoring and enforcement, not occasional raids and temporary closures.

We must also reconsider the way we are developing our cities. Trees are cut, green spaces disappear, agricultural land is converted into concrete developments and natural habitats are destroyed in the name of progress such as Nasir Bagh. We seem to have forgotten that a city needs more than roads, buildings and commercial projects to remain liveable.

What makes this situation particularly frustrating is that Pakistan is not short of environmental policies. Punjab has introduced clean-air initiatives, smog mitigation plans and various enforcement measures. In March 2025, the World Bank approved $300 million concessional loan for the Punjab Clean Air Programme, which includes interventions such as electric buses, agricultural machinery to reduce crop-residue burning, air quality monitoring and improvements in fuel testing. The programme has set a target of reducing PM2.5 pollution by 35 per cent over ten years.

These are welcome commitments. But the existence of a policy does not mean that the problem is being solved.

The difficulty lies in implementation. Government departments often work in isolation, responsibilities overlap, enforcement is inconsistent and long-term planning gives way to short-term emergency responses. We announce ambitious targets but rarely explain, in measurable terms, how much pollution has actually been reduced or which interventions have worked.

Every winter, the response looks remarkably similar. Schools close, outdoor activities are restricted, offices are advised to work remotely and citizens are told to remain indoors. Anti-smog guns are deployed and emergency meetings are held. These measures may offer temporary relief, but they do not address the sources of pollution. Closing schools cannot become our environmental policy. Nor can asking people to remain indoors be presented as a solution to an air quality crisis.

The government must be held accountable for the quality of the air it allows its citizens to breathe. This requires a year-round strategy with clear responsibilities and publicly available results. We need reliable vehicle emission testing, better public transport, cleaner industrial fuel, strict enforcement against waste burning, dust control at construction sites and practical support for farmers who need alternatives to crop burning. We also need independent monitoring stations across Punjab and publicly accessible data that allows citizens to see whether the situation is improving.

There is another part of this crisis that is almost entirely missing from our public discussion: the impact on animals and the natural environment.

We talk about the respiratory health of children and the elderly, but rarely ask what prolonged exposure to polluted air means for the animals living on our streets, in our farms and in our remaining natural habitats. Dogs, cats, horses, cattle and birds breathe the same polluted air. They are exposed to contaminated surroundings and have no way of protecting themselves. They cannot seek shelter when conditions become unbearable, and they cannot access veterinary care simply because the air has become dangerous.

Birds depend on trees for shelter and nesting. Wildlife depends on healthy habitats and functioning ecosystems. When we destroy green spaces, pollute water bodies and allow air pollution to continue unchecked, the damage extends well beyond human health. The full extent of animal suffering and mortality is rarely recorded, making these losses almost invisible in official environmental assessments.

Why should these lives be treated as an afterthought?

Environmental protection cannot be limited to protecting human beings from immediate harm. Our lives are connected to the health of the environment and to the lives of other species. The destruction of habitats, pollution of water and contamination of air are not separate as we live in a cross-sectional ecosystem where rights of all matter. 

Article 9A of our Constitution protects the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment without a caveat, and Pakistan’s environmental jurisprudence has long recognised that this right cannot be separated from the right to a healthy environment. The right to life should not mean merely surviving another day. It must include the basic conditions necessary to live with dignity, including access to clean air and a safe environment.

We should also recognise that the burden of smog is not shared equally. Those who can afford air purifiers, private transport and well-insulated homes have some protection. Outdoor workers, street vendors, sanitation workers, traffic police, children and low-income communities have far fewer choices. They are often the ones who spend the longest hours exposed to polluted air. Environmental injustice is not just about who causes pollution. It is also about who is forced to live with its consequences.

Lahore does not need another winter of emergency announcements followed by another summer of forgotten promises. It needs an environmental policy that works when the skies are clear, because that is when the causes of the next smog season must be addressed.

We should not have to wait for a change in wind direction to breathe safely. We should not have to choose between sending our children to school and exposing them to hazardous air. And we should not accept the deaths and suffering of people, animals and the destruction of our environment as an unavoidable part of winter.

The tragedy is that much of this is preventable. We know where the pollution comes from. We know what needs to change. We have policies, institutions, scientific research and financial resources. What we continue to lack is the consistency and accountability to turn these into results.

Every year, Lahore returns to the top of the world’s pollution rankings. Every year, we express concern. And every year, the air becomes dangerous again.

At some point, we must stop calling this a smog season. It is a failure of governance, and the price is being paid in human lives, animal lives and the health of an environment that cannot keep absorbing our neglect.