Written by Adya Madhavan
Maryam Nawaz Sharif, chief minister of Pakistan’s Punjab, recently called for joint efforts with India to combat growing pollution and smog in the region. Sharif’s bid to deal with environmental issues in a Subcontinental manner is more a matter of urgency than both states seem to believe. This is not to say that efforts haven’t been made to mitigate the implications of climate change and tackle some of these problems, but the major roadblock is that these are, by and large, transboundary issues. To effectively combat them, the measures taken need to transcend borders that have been quite arbitrarily drawn as far as the environment is concerned. The days when environmental issues were merely projections about the future are long gone. Today, they take on a much more tangible form and impact the lives of millions. India and Pakistan share many issues, courtesy of their similar terrain, shared water sources and common airshed.
At this time of year especially, with both the burning of crops and festivals, air pollution tends to be at an all-time high. Six major airsheds span multiple of India and Pakistan’s cities, and following wind patterns, pollutants are blown across borders. Large cities such as Delhi and Lahore fall within these airsheds and are impacted by the increase in........