Clean air is an economic choice Pakistan can no longer postpone

The seventh International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, observed on September 7, 2026, places the economic case for integrated clean-air and climate action at the centre of the global conversation. For Pakistan, that message could not be more timely. Air pollution is no longer a seasonal inconvenience confined to winter smog. It is a year-round public-health emergency, a constraint on human capital and productivity, and a material risk to public finance, business continuity and financial-sector resilience.

Pakistan’s policy architecture has advanced. The federal government adopted the National Clean Air Policy (NCAP) in 2023, and Punjab approved its Clean Air Policy and phased action plan the same year. Yet the decisive question is no longer whether Pakistan has policies. It is whether those policies can be converted into legally anchored responsibilities, credible data, investable sectoral measures and measurable reductions in exposure.

Pakistan’s domestic financial institutions must now become part of the implementation architecture. When banks provide loans, refinancing or dedicated financing windows to industry, their risk assessments should consider material exposure to air pollution, regulatory non-compliance, inefficient technologies and transition risk. Lending structures can then reward verified emissions reductions, cleaner production and credible transition plans. This would improve environmental and financial outcomes while helping industrial sectors move progressively towards net-zero pathways without denying viable firms the capital needed to modernise.

The evidence is already strong enough to act

The scale of the damage is difficult to overstate. The World Bank’s Pakistan Country Climate and Development Report estimates that air pollution could impose economic losses equivalent to 6.5 per cent of GDP each year. A later World Bank appraisal for Punjab reports average annual PM2.5 exposure of about 52 micrograms per cubic metre across the province—more than ten times the WHO annual guideline of 5 micrograms—with measured annual averages of 110–130 micrograms in central Lahore.

The same appraisal estimates that exposure to ambient and household PM2.5 in Pakistan was associated with a vast burden of premature mortality and illness in 2019, with health costs equivalent to about 9 percent of GDP. These estimates use different economic concepts and should not be added together; they nevertheless point in the same direction: polluted air is imposing economy-wide losses that conventional budgeting and credit decisions largely fail to recognise.

Pakistan ranked as the world’s third most polluted country in IQAir’s 2024 assessment, underscoring the severity of population exposure. The burden is also deeply gendered. World Bank modelling attributes about 23pc of Punjab’s PM2.5 concentrations—and 28pc in Greater Lahore—to residential sources, predominantly the burning of solid fuels for cooking. Women and girls often experience greater direct exposure because of cooking roles and time spent near household combustion, while infants and young children breathe the same polluted indoor and neighbourhood air. Older people, persons with disabilities, outdoor workers, low-income households and communities living close to roads, kilns, industrial sites and power infrastructure also face elevated exposure and have fewer resources to protect themselves. Cleaner household energy must therefore be treated as a clean-air, public-health,........

© Dawn Prism