Category: Environment

The rise and decline of the Indus Valley Civilisation has always been a mystery. Various archaeologists and anthropologists have tried to unfold this mystery through different theories. This question was recently answered in the scientific weekly, ‘Nature’, in its edition of the first week of March.

The article says that a 200-year drought doomed the Indus Valley Civilisation. palaeoclimatologist, Yama Dixit, at Cambridge University and her colleagues examined sediments from Kotla Dahar, an ancient lake near the northeastern edge of the Indus Valley area in Haryana, India, that still seasonally floods.

The researchers suggest that the monsoon cycle, which is vital to the livelihoods of all of South Asia, essentially stopped here for as long as two centuries. The decline of civilisations in Egypt, Greece and Mesopotamia has already been attributed to a long-term drought that began around 4200 years ago.

The Indus civilisation, according to archaeological research accounts, was characterised by large, well-planned cities with advanced municipal sanitation systems and a script that has never been deciphered. However, it slowly lost urban cohesion, and its cities were gradually abandoned. Archaeologists and historians, over the generations, have been laying out various assumptions that led to its decline.

Research on the Indus civilisation, has always been an ignored area in our part of the world. However, in his early tenure, Zulifkar Ali Bhutto took some solid efforts that laid to the foundation of its international recognition. This was pioneered with an international seminar – Sindh through Centuries – held in 1975, where researchers and scholars revealed various aspects.

After four decades, the Sindh Madresatul Islam University held another, second International Sindh through Centuries conference on March 24-26 this year and tried to reconnect the past with the present through latest research on the origin and decline of the Indus civilisation, including deciphering its script.

Termed as one of the largest and oldest urban settlements in the world, the headquarters of the Indus Civilisation – Mohenjodaro – is one of the 981 world heritage sites declared so by the Unesco in 1980. Reportedly, this famous world heritage site is fast deteriorating.

Mohenjodaro has been in the headlines recently. Two months ago, it was in the spotlight when PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto inaugurated the Sindh Festival on February 1 within its premises. Experts had already warned that the inaugural ceremony would add more danger to this fast deteriorating site. The personal involvement of Bilawal Bhutto, attracting national and international tourists, is a positive sign, which needs to be harnessed into.

The media has been reporting that some walls are crumbling and others fast decaying due to rain, dust storms and water logging. The condition of the laboratory, museum, motel and other facilities, reportedly, is also very poor. More depressingly, a few years back, even the Mohenjodaro museum was looted. Many of its famous seals remain unrecovered, except ceremonial police reporting and questionable raids on the possible hideouts of stolen treasures – largely believed to be smuggled offshore.

In the aftermath of the 18th Amendment, the custodian of the site is its provincial government. With this, it reportedly received an amount of Rs75 million from the federal government under the National Fund for Mohenjodaro. The fund, during the last four decades, is told to have generated a huge sum of $23 million, mainly through an international campaign jointly run by the federal government and Unesco. The Sindh chief minister, reportedly, also contributed Rs100 million to the fund.

With the takeover of this world heritage site, the government of Sindh has revised the technical committee – an apex body, to preserve and promote the dying site, under the Ministry of Culture. The much-acclaimed authority on the Indus Valley Civilisation German archeologist Dr Michael Jansen has been made its chairperson. Under his guidance, reportedly, new project preparations are told to be in process, for the second master plan, estimating at least Rs1000 million, which needs intensive deliberations with all concerned stakeholders.
Besides money, Mohenjodaro also needs a strong team of professional researchers, trained staff and skilled labour.

The newly envisaged Mohenjodaro master plan can definitely result in better protection of the site, if merit and expertise is not compromised. Provincial interdepartmental coordination is urged to attract more tourists. For this, it needs a dedicated website, promotional literature, incentivised packages, economised travel, and most of all security and safety. This is how, besides preservation and promotion, we may create a qualitative environment, where holistic research on the rise and fall of the Indus civilisation can also be undertaken at our own level, as per international standards.

The writer is an anthropologist and development professional.

ISLAMABAD May 4: Gunmen shot dead 10 foreign tourists at its base camp last year, but for serious mountaineers, the allure of Pakistan’s “killer mountain” remains irresistible.

Militants stormed Nanga Parbat base camp on the night of June 22, 2013, dragging the climbers out of their tents and shooting them point blank along with their local guide.

The massacre badly hit tourism in Pakistan’s wild, mountainous north, which is home to some of the world’s highest peaks and most challenging climbs.

But three winter summit attempts have brought fresh hopes for the industry, crucial to the local economy, as it gears up for the summer climbing season.

Nanga Parbat, Pakistan’s second-highest peak at 8,125 metres (26,660 feet), has never been climbed successfully in winter because of the treacherous weather conditions.

Its fearsome Rupal Face, rising more than 4,000 metres from base to top, presents one of the most difficult — and tantalising — challenges in climbing.

Simone Moro, one of the world’s leading Alpinists, was among those to return unsuccessful from Nanga Parbat this winter.

The Italian has now made two attempts to climb the peak in winter and the mountain is drawing him to make a third.

“I have felt strange feelings there, feelings that I have never felt before at the foot of a mountain,” he said.

“Nanga is not just a mountain, it is a whole world on its own to be discovered and explored — a planet apart from the Himalayas.”

“The Rupal Face is incredible, its like a giant planet standing in front of you, seducing you to climb it.”

Nanga Parbat earned its grisly nickname after more than 30 climbers died trying to conquer it before the first successful summit in 1953.

The events of last June gave the name a new, more sinister overtone but Moro says the incident was a blip and he wants to encourage others to come to Pakistan.

“I consider Nanga Parbat as the most safest place in Pakistan,” he said.

“What happened last year was just a tragic episode, accidents can happen anywhere in the world but that never means it will always repeat itself.”

David Goettler, a German member of the expedition led by Moro who has twice attempted K2 — Pakistan’s highest peak and the world’s second-highest — said he was astonished by the attack.

“I could not believe it, I was like ‘how on earth did the terrorists come there?’” he said.

“I have visited Pakistan six times in the past and I have a super good relationship with the people there.”

The regional government in Gilgit-Baltistan has slashed the fee for climbing in winter by 95 percent to $270.

But Moro said it was very difficult for mountaineers to get visas for Pakistan — a common gripe from tourists who face seemingly endless bureaucratic hurdles to visit even for a short time.

“You have to literally fight for six to seven months to get a visa for Pakistan — you need to open your doors in order to let people come in,” said Moro.

Ashraf Aman, the first Pakistani climber to scale K2, says the government is making no serious effort to encourage tourism.

The country’s powerful intelligence services — which keep a close watch on foreigners travelling outside of major cities — make life difficult for those who do arrive, said Aman, who now runs a tour operating company.

“It is very difficult to get a visa and if a tourist’s luck wins him a visa he regrets his decision the moment he arrives in Pakistan,” he said.
“The security and intelligence agencies start never-ending sessions of questions, one after another at each destination.”

Nestled between the western end of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush mountains and the Karakoram range, Gilgit-Baltistan houses 18 of the world’s 50 highest peaks.

It is also home to three of the world’s seven longest glaciers outside the polar regions and hundreds of its mountains have never been climbed.

But it is the lure of Nanga Parbat that draws Moro back, the famous names that have climbed it in the past — Reinhold Messner, Steve House, Tomaz Humar.

“Climbing Nanga Parbat is like crossing an ocean or a desert, heading to the peak with the idea of joining two points across a treacherous nowhere,” said Moro.

As global average temperatures rise, scientific models indicate that human society will suffer increased heat-related illness and death, food insecurity, water stress and spread of infectious diseases, in addition to increased climate related disasters. Pakistan is, in fact, increasingly vulnerable to floods and droughts caused by a changing climate.

At first glance it appears that the recent deaths of at least 62 children in the southern district of Tharparkar in Sindh have been caused by drought; but actually the desert region is not in the grips of a severe famine as has been reported by some sections of the media.

According to the head of the National Disaster Management Authority, “Only a mild drought was indicated in Cholistan, Tharparkar, Sukkur and Khairpur areas by the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD)”. The PMD’s National Drought Monitoring Centre has released a press statement dated March 7, 2014, stating that “In the wake of recent disaster confronting Tharparkar district, meteorological data has been analysed that depict that current disaster may be termed as ‘socio-economic disaster’ rather than simply drought because seasonal and annual rainfall were moderately below than climatic averages. The disaster may have occurred by moderately below average rains coupled with some epidemic and weak socio-economic settings of the area”.

The PMD’s statement further clarified that “During monsoon 2013, Tharparkar region received 70pc of its normal rainfall in which Chor received 94pc of rainfall while Mithi receive 46pc of rainfall. However, 60mm rainfall was recorded in Mithi during October 2013 that compensated the monsoon deficit in the area.” The amount of annual rainfall in the desert is generally low and around 90pc of the total annual rainfall occurs during the monsoon, from July to September. Hence the rains did not fail last year, although they fell in pockets over the district that spreads over 22,000 square km, with some Talukas receiving more and others less.

The winter months are generally a dry season in the desert and the local community copes by migrating with its livestock to the barrage-irrigated parts of Sindh to seek work as farm labourers to harvest the wheat crop. According to Zafar Junejo, the chief executive officer of the Thardeep Rural Development Programme that works in the district with local communities, “These deaths occurred from December to March and not just in one month. There is no drought as such. I attribute the deaths to a combination of factors: malnutrition, pneumonia, premature birth, low birth weight … all born to mothers who are anaemic (deficient in iron).”

He adds, “The mothers all suffer from neglected reproductive health issues. They have six to seven children each by the age of 40 and are suffering from a host of problems: anaemia, illiteracy and food insecurity, since in this district you have only one crop a year (the rest of Sindh has two crops). What is needed is long-term planning — the women need regular sources of income like milk cooperatives or women’s cooperative farming.”

He points out that while there is a widespread road network in Tharparkar connecting the district to the outside world, the local people have no purchasing power. “One time food distribution or aid is not really going to help the situation — they need more interventions and a perennial income source.”

It appears that the deaths of children were the result of a chain of events triggered by unusual cold weather in the Thar Desert this winter that led to the outbreak of pneumonia. The already weak/malnourished children then became victims of the poor medical facilities available in the district and died over the last three months.

At the heart of this disaster, however, is the growing issue of food insecurity in Pakistan. According to Oxfam GB, “Half the population is ‘food insecure’ — they can’t be sure where their next meal is coming from. This is compared to a decade ago when a third of the population was in this situation.” Pakistan’s National Nutrition Survey (NNS) 2011 found that around 60pc of Pakistan’s total population is today facing food insecurity. The results of the survey indicated a sharp decline in the nutritional status of the people of the country over the past decade.

The survey took a sample of 30,000 households nationwide covering all the provinces and found that around 57pc of the households were facing food insecurity. In these households, 50pc of the women and children were found to be malnourished. The report stated that iron deficiency and vitamin A deficiency remains widespread in the country. The survey found Sindh, Balochistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to be the major hotspots for childhood malnutrition in the country.

The report noted that the increasing rate of chronic and acute malnutrition in the country is primarily due to poverty, higher illiteracy rate among mothers and the government’s lack of commitment towards ensuring food security for its citizens. The current levels of malnutrition are unacceptably high in Pakistan — instead of merely handing out relief to the people of Tharparkar our policy makers need to think about long-term solutions before further casualties take place. For now climate change might not be the reason, but as Oxfam points out “a hostile climate will become a potent risk multiplier”.

REPORTS in the media during the past few days about a virtual famine in Tharparkar, about a sharp increase in deaths, especially of children due to malnutrition or negligence, and about desperate outward migration of residents have caused justified widespread concern and prompted governmental, judicial, civil and military responses.

While conditions certainly deserve alleviation, the doom-like scenario misrepresents a substantial part of reality.

First: severe adversity affects parts of the population and the region, not the entire area and all residents. Tharparkar is spread over 22,000 square kilometres with a population of about 1.5 million residing in 2,300 villages and urban settlements. Divided into six talukas — Mithi, Islamkot, Chachro, Dihly, Diplo and Nagarparkar — the area often receives varying levels of rainfall or none at all.

Last year, Nagarparkar taluka received plentiful rain. Crops have been cultivated in over 336,000 acres and are adequate to sustain an average tehsil population of about 212,000.

Agricultural productivity in places like Kasbo can be so high that, currently, after meeting local needs, onions from Tharparkar are being trucked all the way to Gujranwala, Punjab. No case of starvation or even of severe malnutrition has been reported in the whole taluka, and even in some others.

There was scattered, uneven rainfall in the other five talukas. Several tens of thousands are definitely affected by farming water scarcity. But this is a recurrent, periodic feature of life.

People residing in small villages in the rural “baraari” parts cope by seasonal outward migration to the barrage-irrigated parts of Sindh to serve as farm labour.

At this very time, in the normal course, such migration begins: to harvest the imminently ripe wheat crop in the weeks ahead. Thus, ongoing migration is not necessarily linked to suddenly impactful drought.

Second: apart from farming, livestock-related income is a major source of livelihood. Of about six million animals comprising cattle, sheep, camels, goats, about half a million sheep are estimated to be victims of sheep pox or other ailments.

Blanket vaccination of all animals is the best protection against fatal epidemics.

But with only 11 veterinary doctors on duty out of a sanctioned number of only 17 posts and other paucity of resources in the 135 vet units across a large region, comprehensive vaccination was not conducted in 2013, causing loss of some, but not the majority of the livestock population which continues to support the human population.

Third: the livelihoods of a large number of residents come from shop retailing, small- and medium-scale trade, construction, transport, several services, and employment in the government and non-governmental sectors.

Thus, all are not dependent entirely on rain-based crops or livestock-related incomes, though drought does impact in some ways on other spheres.

Fourth: negligence, apathy, corruption, avoidable shortages and poor governance are far bigger ‘killers’ than drought and famine. In cases of a sharp increase in infant and child mortality in the Mithi Civil Hospital, all or some of the above appear to be the main causes. Prompt diagnosis in the recurring morbidity pattern such as of diarrhoea, malnutrition, under-nourishment (as distinct from outright starvation), pneumonia, etc; quick referral to specialists, and sustained treatment with both drug and non-drug therapies could swiftly contain and reduce mortalities.

The inadequacy dimension is typified by the fact that in the Nagarparkar taluka hospital, out of the 32 sanctioned posts for doctors, only four are presently staffed. Non-governmental health centres strive to redress such gross imbalances.

Of the total of 139 governmental health units in Tharparkar, 31 BHUs and 102 dispensaries administered by the stricter-accountability measures of the PPHI intervention will hopefully also correct deficiencies elsewhere, albeit on a limited scale.

Fifth: post-2000, the awkward, inconvenient truth is that, particularly during the regime of retired General Pervez Musharraf and former chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim, the physical infrastructure of Tharparkar reached an unprecedented level of progress.

Where, for example, in previous times, only about two kilometres of metalled road was built in a whole year, roads of the same length and more were built every month, and in even less time, for several years.

Grid electricity to main towns, water pipelines to large settlements, preparatory infrastructure for exploitation of coal reserves including work by the post-2008 PPP government, rapid proliferation of telecommunication and mobile phones have vastly enhanced mobility, access and information flow.

This transformative change remains ignored by the media which prefer stereotypical bad news.

Sixth: there is a need for immediate relief for large numbers in some parts. But the priorities should be the efficiency, integrity and quality of relief delivery, rather than quantum alone.

Corrupt practices in relief delivery often provide more benefits to the few rather than succour for the many. Several non-governmental organisations, with their limited resources, contribute to the relief work.

Without reducing the urgency of alleviating current suffering, the far more vital subjects requiring purposeful action by legislators, public office-holders and officials is non-partisan accountability and improved governance.

The media too need to curtail their sensationalist, under-researched outpourings while remaining vigilant. The candid self-criticism of Sindh’s chief minister is a helpful step forward.

We all remember “Snowmageddon” in February of 2010. Even as Washington, D.C., saw 32 inches of snowfall for the month of February—more than it has seen in any February since 1899—conservatives decided to use the weather to mock global warming. Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe and his family even built an igloo on Capitol Hill and called it “Al Gore’s New Home.” Har har.

Yet at the same time, scientific voices were pointing out something seemingly counterintuitive, but in fact fairly simple to understand: Even as it raises temperatures on average, global warming may also lead to more intense individual snow events. It’s a lesson to keep in mind as the northeast braces for winter storm Janus—which is expected to deliver as much as a foot of snow in some regions—and we can expect conservatives to once again mock climate change.

To understand the relationship between climate change and intense snowfall, you first need to understand that global warming certainly doesn’t do away with winter or the seasons. So it’ll still be plenty cold enough for snow much of the time. Meanwhile, global warming loads the dice in favor of more intense precipitation through changes in atmospheric moisture content. “Warming things up means the atmosphere can and does hold more moisture,” explains Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. “So in winter, when there is still plenty of cold air there’s a risk of bigger snows. With east coast storms, where the moisture comes from the ocean which is now warmer, this also applies.”

Why does the atmosphere hold more moisture? The answer is a key physical principle called the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, stating that as atmospheric temperature rises, there is an exponential increase in the amount of water vapor that the air can hold—leading to more potential precipitation of all types. (A detailed scientific explanation can be found here.)

Indeed, scientific reports have often noted the snow-climate relationship. An expansive 2006 study of US snowstorms during the entirety of the 20th century, for instance, found that they were more common in wetter and warmer years. “A future with wetter and warmer winters…will bring more snowstorms than in 1901-2000,” the paper predicted. There is also a clear increase in precipitation in the most intense precipitation events, especially in the northeast:.

“More winter and spring precipitation is projected for the northern U.S., and less for the Southwest, over this century,” adds the draft US National Climate Assessment. Precipitation of all kinds is expected to increase, the study notes, but there will be large regional variations in how this is felt.

“The old adage, ‘it’s too cold to snow,’ has some truth to it,” observes meteorologist Jeff Masters, co-founder of the Weather Underground. “The heaviest snows tend to occur when the air temperature is near the freezing mark, since the amount of water vapor in the air increases as the temperature increases. If the climate in a region where it is ‘too cold to snow’ warms to a level where more snowstorms occur near the freezing point, an increase in the number of heavy snowstorms is possible for that region.”

In fairness, global warming is also expected to decrease overall snow cover, because intense snow events notwithstanding, snow won’t last on the ground as long in a warmer world. In fact, a decrease in snow cover is already happening.

Today’s snows will usher in a new northeast cold spell, not as intense as the “polar vortex” onslaught of two weeks ago but still pretty severe. But a temporary burst of cold temperatures doesn’t refute climate change any more than a major snowstorm does. Indeed, we have reasons to expect that the rapid warming of the Arctic may be producing more cold weather in the mid-latitudes in the Northern hemisphere. For an explanation of why, listen to our interview with meteorologist Eric Holthaus on a recent installment of Inquiring Minds (from minutes 2 through 12 below):

None of this is to say, of course, that global warming explains single events; its effect is present in overall changes in moisture content, and perhaps, in the large-scale atmospheric patterns that bring us our weather.

Still, that’s more than enough to refute conservatives who engage in snow trolling.

ISLAMABAD, Feb 1 — Ramesh Iqbal lives in one of the Pakistani capital’s middle-class neighborhoods and attends college. But on a recent day, he and two friends emerged from a wooded area, their arms full of the logs and branches they had to gathered to warm their homes.

“We never thought we would face such a situation,” said Iqbal, 24, wearing a sweater over a collared shirt. “But due to winter, and cold, we are facing problems.”

In a country where about 20 percent of residents lack basic utilities, generations of poor and rural Pakistanis have relied on timber to make it through the winter. But severe energy shortages are turning even wealthier families into wood scavengers.

They snap branches, uproot saplings and hack trees, and they carry their bounty any way they can — by truck, motorcycle and even bicycle. And with each trip, Pakistan loses another piece of its tree canopy, an alarming trend for one of the world’s least forested countries.

Environmentalists and government officials fear Pakistan is now at a tipping point, having retained just 2 to 5 percent of its tree cover. Officials fear the deforestation will contribute to more lethal floods, disruptive landslides, bacteria-ridden drinking water and stifling air pollution. The country may also become more vulnerable to climate change.

“This is a very dangerous situation for Pakistan,” said Pervaiz Amir, a local forestry and agriculture expert. “The middle class are now cutting trees and burning trees.”

But convincing the public of the value of tree cover has been a tough sell, especially this year, when electricity is out for up to 10 hours each day and the natural gas supply is often too low to power heaters and stoves.

Even in Islamabad, known as one of the greenest capitals in Asia because of the nearby Margalla Hills National Park, wooded areas and vacant lots are being slashed, leaving behind rows of twisted, yellow, ankle-high sapwood.

Shortages of gas, electric

Under British colonial rule, Pakistan was sparsely populated and largely avoided the tree-cutting that stripped many other areas in South Asia of greenery. Pakistan had towering timber forests in the north, coniferous forests in its western hills and lush mangrove forests where its southern border meets the Indian Ocean.

But as Pakistan’s population grew from about 37 million in 1947, when it was partitioned from India, to an estimated 180 million residents today, forests were rapidly depleted. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, more than 1 million Afghans fled into Pakistan, often moving into makeshift camps carved out of previously forested areas.

More recently, Pakistan has struggled to combat a relentless “timber mafia,” a term that loosely defines individuals and organized groups who illegally cut and sell timber without a permit. Over the years, there have been numerous allegations that police and forestry officials have accepted kickbacks from the lucrative industry.

“In my father’s times, some 70-80 years back, there were forests and tall trees on almost every hill, but now most are barren,” said Muhammad Afzal Khan, a former federal minister in the scenic Swat Valley, which has been particularly hard-hit by illegal cutting. “The forest officials are part of the problem — [they are] not the protectors.”

Now, the shortage of natural gas for heating and cooking is increasingly prompting people to build fires in portable fireplaces and stoves. Though Pakistan had a plentiful supply of natural gas a decade ago, a surge in demand and poor efficiency standards have led to a steady decrease in supplies in recent winters.

“This is the first time we’ve had to collect wood, as there was no gas crisis like this before,” said Khalid Nazir, 35, a tailor in Islamabad.

Syed Mahmood Nasir, Pakistan’s inspector general for forests, said he’s particularly concerned that large factories in major cities such as Karachi are also burning wood for heat because of electric and gas shortages.

“This should be a concern not only for Pakistan, but a global concern,” Nasir said.

Even before this year, the World Bank had estimated that just 2.1 percent of Pakistan had forest cover, compared with 23 percent in neighboring India and 33 percent in the United States. Pakistani leaders dispute that figure, saying satellite-generated data reveal a forestation rate of about 5.1 percent.

But government officials acknowledge the problem and fear deforestation is worsening the impact of extreme weather, contributing to tragedies such as the record-setting floods in 2010 that covered one-fifth of the country and killed more than 1,50o people.

Even before this winter, Pakistan was losing 67,500 acres of forest­land annually, according to government statistics. Amir estimated that the country needs to plant 1.5 trillion to 2 trillion trees to begin reversing the damage, saying one acre can hold up to 2,500 saplings.

“If you look at satellites, there is no tree cover in public forests; they are all gone,” said Amir, who is also a South Asia expert for the Global Water Partnership, which advocates for sustainable development and water management.

Officials say Pakistan is planting about 100 million saplings each year, but about half of them die within two years. Environmentalists are skeptical of the figures.

Raja Hasan Abbas, secretary of the federal government’s Climate Change Division, said there is only so much that Pakistan’s cash-starved government can do as it struggles with debt, a weak economy and near-daily terrorist attacks.

“The government of Pakistan has limitations,” Abbas said.

Little incentive to sustain

In December, Pakistan secured a $3.8 million grant from the World Bank to study the extent of deforestation and begin drafting strategies for curtailing it. Naeem Ashraf Raja, the director of Pakistan’s biodiversity program, said officials also hope to convince the United States and other foreign donors to help launch programs to compensate landowners who agree not to cut trees. Currently, there is little incentive for Pakistanis to preserve green space on private land.

Azhar Javed, who has run a timber market on the outskirts of Islamabad, said demand has driven up prices by about 30 percent this year. While good for business, the price hike encourages illegal logging, and Javed is worried about the long-term sustainability of his business.

“The people who live in forest areas are uneducated, unemployed . . .so they just cut trees and cut forests,” Javed said. “And they don’t have money for replantation.”

A 48-year-old man who was carrying dozens of branches on his head as he walked on a hillside road above Islamabad said he collects wood for several hours a day, including in the Margalla Hills National Park, and sells what he can carry for about $3.50.

“I have no job,” said the man, Akhtar, who uses only one name. “ And this is the only way I am earning for my four kids.”

Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar contributed to this report.

THE density of the fog that has been blanketing parts of Pakistan for some years now has been steadily increasing. Steps urgently need to be taken to mitigate its effects.

Many mistakenly think that the fog that has become the norm during the winters is the natural outcome of falling temperatures and relative humidity. However, fog created in this manner is localised and vanishes as the temperature rises.

The persistence and intensity of the haze currently enveloping parts of the country is actually the effect of the deeper problem of air pollution. While automobile exhaust, the burning of dried leaves and other polluting activities are contributors, the single biggest factor is the use of coal for the generation of electricity in thermal power plants.

In terms of air pollution, South Asia is amongst the most badly affected areas in the world. Unchecked industrial activity that uses fuels that endanger the environment has brought about severe changes in climate, including fog.

Regions that don’t have such polluting industries are not spared either: the levels of gases such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate matter have been increasing with pollutants being carried by the wind for thousands of miles. Consequently, pollution is an issue not just for the country that produces it but for other states as well.

The phenomenon of persisting fog during December and January has been increasing in Pakistan over the past 15 years. Its range also includes the Indo-Gangetic plain that stretches from Peshawar to Kolkata and beyond. The single largest contributor to air pollution in South Asia is coal-run thermal power generation.

The consumption of coal in South Asia during 2012 was around 685 million tons in total, out of which 98pc was used in India; the majority of this coal was consumed by the power sector. The share of electricity generated using coal as fuel in India is 71pc, 3.2pc in Bangladesh and 0.1pc in Pakistan. A report by the Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy in Bangalore reveals that the quality of Indian coal is very poor, with 35-45pc ash content and low heating value. Thus, the generation of one unit of electricity emits one kilo of carbon dioxide; annually, almost 200 million tons of ash are generated by the use of coal in the power sector.

Energy is vital for growth in India and consequently, the fog that envelopes Pakistan over the winter months has kept pace with its generation and grown thicker. Indian reports on the energy statistics of 2013 say that today India is the ninth largest economy in the world driven by a real GDP growth of 8.7pc. This has placed enormous demand on its energy resources.

The demand and supply imbalance in energy is pervasive and requires serious efforts by the government of India to augment energy supplies. The country faces possibly severe energy-supply constraints. Nevertheless, India is violating transnational environmental laws by creating negative externalities for the countries it shares borders with.

Indian scientists concede that coal-based thermal power plants are major air pollutants, including small particle pollutants — the aerosol.

Recent studies using satellite modelling show a significant increase in aerosols in the Indo-Gangetic plain. Several reports also conclude that the coal supplied to power plants is of the worst quality. This factor, coupled with the low efficiency, results in more pollution. The emission of other, more hazardous gases, fly ash and suspended particulate are responsible for aggravating the greenhouse effect.

Pakistan is suffering from dire changes in its climate. Many projects have been envisaged and some even pursued for remedying global warming, but the lack of clearly identified goals and effective strategies have resulted in zero gains.

Like the fog that envelopes much of Pakistan, these efforts have been draped in a shroud of failed promises and never accomplished aims. Climate change has evolved into an industry in the country but the only effort is in terms of getting funding. Ensuring the implementation of practical measures is hardly on the agenda of any non-governmental organisation working in the climate change sector in Pakistan.

While I appreciate the efforts of the present government for increasing cooperation with India, there is a need to augment these by taking steps to prevent environmental degradation. Pakistan needs to follow the model of the Asean agreement to come up with a ‘Transboundary Haze Pollution’ model in South Asia. At the same time, other countries including Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, have to find the courage to ask India to replace its coal-power plants.

The writer is adviser, water and energy, at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad

PARIS, Jan 9: Pakistan, along with India and Bangladesh, remained the market leaders in global ship breaking, with the subcontinent accounting for more than two-thirds of business, a French monitoring group said on Thursday.

In 2013, 1,119 ships went to the world’s breaker’s yards, a decline of 16 per cent over 2012 which was an “exceptional year,” the environmental watchdog Robin des Bois (Robin Hood) said.

The figures “confirm that the ship demolition sector is in good health,” Robin des Bois said.

It is the second highest tally since 2006, when the group began compiling annual reports in an effort to boost transparency in a sector with a contested environmental record.

In terms of number of ships demolished, the three South Asian countries accounted for 50 per cent of ships torn down in 2013.

India, being the world leader, tore 343 ships, or about 26 per cent of total ships demolished.

Bangladesh and Pakistan stood third and fifth in the list with 210 and 104 ships or 16 and eight per cent respectively.

In terms of tonnage, the three South Asian countries accounted for 71 per cent of the worlds scrapped ships. India came in at the top with 2.8 million tonnes or 31 per cent of total metal recycled globally, while Bangladesh and Pakistan accounted for 2.3 million (25 per cent) and 1.4 million (15 per cent) respectively.

India headed the list in both categories, but China was also a big player, ranking second in the number of ships that it demolished and third in terms of tonnage. Pakistan came in fifth (by number of ships) and fourth (by tonnage).

Turkey captured a significant market as it came in fourth by number of ships, tearing down 136 ships (10%) and fifth by tonnage with 514,000 tonnes (six per cent).

Of the 1,119 ships, 667 were scrapped after being held at ports, along with their crew, for failing to meet international safety standards, the report said.

“Port inspections are playing a solid role in cleaning up the world’s merchant fleet,” it said.

Roughly a third of ships that were broken up were bulk carriers, while container ships accounted for one in six – a sharp rise over the last six years.

According to the report, out of 1119 ships that were scrapped in 2013, 387 were bulker, 245 cargo, 180 container ships, 164 containers and 39 Ro Ro.

Environmental concerns

South Asia has long been a graveyard for merchant ships, but it also carries a reputation for poor safety and environmental hazards.

The European Union has approved regulations requiring large EU-flagged vessels to be recycled at approved facilities.

Robin des Bois described the intention as “pious,” given that only eight per cent of such vessels were scrapped at European yards in 2013, and many European ships were given a flag of convenience by their owners for their last voyage.