Reclaiming original air

The cost of polluted air is growing; the effort to reverse it must grow faster

Karachi’s skyline tells a troubling story. The haze that hangs over its roads, industries, and neighbourhoods is not merely dust — it is the visible symptom of an invisible crisis. Air pollution has crept into the city’s daily rhythm, seeping into homes, schools, and hospitals, eroding public health and quality of life. Yet, the institutional response remains weak, fragmented, and largely reactive.

As a news report carried in this newspaper revealed, Karachi’s deteriorating air quality is now a full-blown environmental and health emergency. What makes it worse is the lack of reliable monitoring, consistent data, and coordinated policy. Environmental watchdogs are aware of the decline, but the systems to measure, manage, and mitigate pollution have long fallen into neglect. The few air-quality monitoring stations once supported by development partners are either defunct or outdated. Without credible real-time data, authorities are left diagnosing the crisis blindfolded — a failure that trickles down into policy paralysis.

Behind the statistics lie stories of breathlessness — of citizens, young and old, struggling with respiratory infections, allergic conditions, and chronic lung disease. Health experts consistently link these ailments to suspended dust, vehicular emissions, unregulated industrial activity, and the routine burning of garbage. The city’s poor urban planning, unchecked construction, and dwindling tree cover have compounded the problem, turning Karachi into a laboratory of preventable suffering.

What stands out most is not just the gravity of the situation, but the scale of indifference surrounding it. Public awareness remains minimal; environmental education is nearly absent; and the health sector itself rarely integrates air quality into its preventive agenda. The government’s responses, when they come, tend to be event-driven rather than strategic — a seminar here, a campaign there — while pollution quietly tightens its grip on the metropolis.

It is time to move beyond rhetoric. Karachi needs a robust, transparent, and independent air-quality monitoring network — one that runs round the clock and informs both citizens and policymakers. Without data, there can be no accountability; without accountability, there can be no progress. The city must also enforce emission controls, regulate construction dust, and invest in greener urban infrastructure. Public transport reform and cleaner fuel standards are not luxuries — they are life-saving measures.

Equally, civil society and professional bodies must reclaim their roles as watchdogs and educators. Doctors, environmentalists, researchers, and the media share a collective responsibility to sustain public dialogue and pressure for reform. Clean air is not an elite concern — it is a constitutional right linked directly to the right to health and life.

If we cannot breathe safely in our own city, development loses all meaning.

Originally published in Social Track, Karachi.

File photos courtesy: Social Track