ESSAY ON ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION AND GLOBAL WARMING

1. INTRODUCTION:
Significant strides have been made in Pakistan for forwarding the environmental agenda from being a stand-alone topic to one identifying itself as an integral element of the national mainstream development with the recently launched Mid-Term Development Framework for 2005-2010. This also lends itself to address sustainable environmental development as a vehicle for economic growth. Several policies, plans, programs and projects have been initiated for environmental protection and conservation in the sectoral areas of water and air pollution control, land use, forest management, energy efficiency, biodiversity conservation, and waste management, etc. In addition, Pakistan’s role in the international community vis-à-vis its responsibilities for sustainable development has also become known through the Government’s show of commitment for instance on biodiversity, drought and desertification, and climate change, etc.
Economic Survey (2005-06) stated, “Sustainable development remains the cornerstone of government policies, and the concern for environment, its protection, renewal and enrichment is recognized as an obligation towards the betterment of all citizens. Concerns of environment sustainability are integrated in the country’s development agenda and as a crosscutting subject, are being addressed in all sectors of economy. The poverty-environment nexus has been of particular interest in the recent years as poverty in Pakistan, like in many other middle-income countries, plays an important role in increasing the vulnerability of the poor to pollution and environmental degradation.”

From formulating the National Conservation Strategy to becoming a signatory to many international conventions/protocols/agreements, Pakistan has emerged as an active and responsible player for environmental conservation. This responsiveness to global and national environmental challenges has been supported through legislation, policy making and creating institutional set up. National Environment Action Plan (NEAP) that was initiated with the approval of the Pakistan Environment Protection Council and the UNDP funded, NEAP Support Program (NEAP-SP) remains the flagship initiative of the Government of Pakistan in the environment area. NEAP-SP focuses on a healthy environment and a sustainable livelihood by improving the quality of air, water and land with civil society cooperation. In this regard, the Initial Environmental Examination (IEE) and the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) have already been made mandatory for public sector development projects.

2. NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT POLICY:
One of the major achievements of NEAP-SP during 2005-06 was the formulation of the “National Environmental Policy 2005” which has been approved by the Federal Cabinet. The country’s first ever “Environmental Policy” compliments the objectives of NEAP-SP and addresses the sectoral issues such as (a) water management and conservations, (b) energy efficiency and renewable, (c) agriculture and livestock, (d) forestry and plantation, (e) biodiversity and protected areas, (f) climate change, air quality and noise, and (g) pollution and waste management.

The policy also addresses other cross-sectoral issues such as (a) Population and Environment, (b) Gender and Environment, (c) Health and Environment, (d) Trade and environment, (e) Poverty and Environment and (f) Environment and Local Government. NEAP-SP has also launched a number of Environment related projects in Wind Power, Energy Conservation, Micro Hydro, Juniper Forests, Chilghoza Forests, through its partners namely the Ministry of Water and Power, AEDB, Ministry of Science and technology and the Ministry of Education. In the water sector, Pakistan is faced with severe water shortages and water quality issues. The orientation of the water management institutions and experts is largely toward harnessing the resource in the service of economic growth, and not towards its conservation or quality. In addition, severe levels of water pollution and unchecked industrial pollutants being released in water bodies have added an ‘immediate measure’ status to water management issues. Similarly, although making headway in addressing ambient air quality in the country, Pakistan is struggling with ineffective air quality management systems. Adding to this burden is the fact that at present there is no continuous monitoring station present in the country and most of the data reported is obtained from mobile monitoring units or spontaneous on-site sampling with laboratories based results. A common issue for lack of compliance to water and air quality monitoring and maintenance has been limited resources and persistent information gap.
Other environmental sectors such as wetlands and mangroves are also faced with a similar resource crunch and information and data inadequacies thereby negatively effecting the policy and program implementation. Over fishing and polluted waters are contributing to the reduction of productivity of the marine and inland fisheries. The precarious condition of mangroves in coastal zone and the even more precarious status of certain aquatic wildlife are but a few indicators of the rate of degradation.

3. COLLABORATION WITH INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY:
On the International front, Pakistan is a signatory to a number of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and has acceded to other non-legally binding instruments such as Agenda-21 Rio Principles and Johannesburg Plan of Implementation aiming for sustainable development of natural resources. Among them are the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild flora and fauna (CITES), United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, Basel Convention on the Control of Trans-boundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

Although constrained by issues such as lack of awareness, technical expertise, institutional set-up/capacity, coordination among various concerned departments /organizations, and a clear cut policy and plan of action for each MEA, yet Pakistan has taken several steps to meet its obligations to the MEAs. Key actions include finalizing the National Implementation Plan (NIP) to eliminate Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), meeting the targets set by Montreal Protocol for the elimination of Ozone Depleting Substances, implementing the Biodiversity Action Plan, finalizing the Action Plan for UNCCD; finalizing the guidelines and rules for hospital waste management, and regular reporting to UNFCCC through its National communication.

4. CLEAN DEVELOPMENT MECHANNISM (CDM):
Following the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in 2006, Pakistan has established the “Designated National Authority” (DNA) for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in the Ministry of Environment. National Operational Strategy for CDM has been approved by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, which offers all support for attracting investments and capitalizing the carbon business under the CDM initiative. The CDM Cell is working with public and private sector partners for attracting investments in energy efficiency, renewable and alternate energy, industries, forestry and agriculture together with technology transfer and capacity building. The government of Pakistan has enhanced budgetary allocations for the environment sector for the period 2005-2010, which will significantly contribute towards ensuring the environmental sustainability.




5. IMPACT OF POLLUTION:
1) Air

One of the major environmental issues is degradation of ambient air quality particularly in urban areas. The key factors contributing to air pollution in Pakistan are: a) rapidly growing energy demand; b) increasing industrial and domestic demand and c) a fast growing transport sector. In the cities, widespread use of low-quality fuel, combined with a dramatic expansion in the number of vehicles on roads, has led to significant air pollution problems. Air pollution levels in Pakistan’s most populated cities are among the highest in the world and climbing, causing serious health issues. The levels of ambient particulates – smoke particles and dust, which cause respiratory disease – are generally twice the world average and more than five times as high as in industrial countries and Latin America. Various surveys show that air pollution levels in cities have either crossed safe limits or have reached the threshold values.

I. Suspended Particulate Matter:

The most serious issue of air quality in Pakistan is the presence of excessive Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) in the ambient air. The major sources of SPM are vehicles, industry, burning of solid waste, brick kilns and natural dust. The origin of Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) may be a natural phenomenon, such as unpaved roads and places uncovered by green grass or trees. Fine particles size of soil may be raised in the form of dust cloud by driven motor vehicles and by strong wind blow. Other origins may be considered coming from artificial emission of SPM such as emission gases including the particulate matter from the motor vehicles and industrial activities.

II. Vehicular Pollution:
The major source of CO emission and particulate matters is from motor vehicles emission. In Pakistan, the number of vehicles have jumped from 0.8 million to about 4.0 million within 20 years showing an overall increase of more than 400%. The average compound growth of vehicles is about 11 percent per annum. Since 1980, the maximum growth has been seen in 2-stroke vehicles such as delivery vans, which are approximately 1,751%, followed by motorcycles 541% and Rickshaws 159%. Diesel trucks and buses have also increased at an alarming rate of 200-300% since 1980. Diesel vehicles due to overloading, faulty injection nozzles and weak engines, emit excessive graphitic carbon (visible smoke). Motorcycles and rickshaws, due to their two-stroke engines, are the most inefficient in burning fuel and contribute most to emissions.

2) Water:
Fresh water as a commodity generates concern, being an exhaustible resource and due to the environmental issues related to its degradation. Preserving the quality and availability of freshwater resources however, is becoming the most pressing of many environmental challenges for Pakistan. Perhaps, because water is considered a cheap and readily available resource, there is not enough appreciation just how much stress human demands for water are placing on natural ecosystems.

3) Land
Pakistan is predominantly a dry-land country where 80 % of its land area is arid or semi-arid, about 12% is dry sub-humid and remaining 8 % is humid. Two-third of Pakistan’s rapidly increasing population depends on dry-lands to support their livelihood mainly through agro-pastoral activities. However, like many other developing countries dry lands in Pakistan are severely affected by land degradation and desertification due to unsustainable land management practices and increasing demand of natural resources causing enormous environmental problems, including degradation of dry-land ecosystems, loss of soil fertility, flash floods, loss of biodiversity, reduction in land productivity, soil erosion, water logging, salinity, and many other associated problems. The situation is further aggravated by scarcity of water, frequent droughts and miss-management of land resources, contributing to expansion of deserts, reduced productivity and consequently increases in rural poverty. Moreover, there is limited knowledge of consequences and economic implications of land degradation, information gaps, and limited institutional capacity to address land degradation and desertification problems through an integrated land management approach.

Some threats of land degradation are greater than others in terms of their manifestation: Water logging and salinity as a result of poor irrigation practices affects 14 million ha, while deforestation and overgrazing affect 11 and 24 million ha, respectively. While the former is the cause of the most widespread land degradation in river basins (in Sindh and the Punjab), the latter combine (mostly deforestation, water and wind erosion) to affect the greater dry land and upland areas (Balochistan, NWFP and parts of Punjab) and do considerable damage to the integrity of ecosystems and provision of essential ecosystem services – soils, trees, water and biodiversity.

4) Forestry
Pakistan has 4.01 million hectares covered by forests, which is equivalent to about 5% of the total land area. Eighty five percent of this is a public forest, which includes 40% coniferous and scrub forests on the northern hills and mountains. The balance is made up of irrigated plantations and river rain forests along major rivers on the Indus plains, mangrove forests on the Indus delta and trees planted on farmlands. Though the forest resource is meager it plays an important role in Pakistan’s economy by employing half a million people, providing 363 thousand cubic meters of timber which constitute as one-third of the nation’s energy needs. Forests and Rangelands support about 30 million herds of livestock, which contributes more than US$ 400 million to Pakistan’s annual export earnings. Forestry sector plays an important role in soil conservation, regulates flow of water for irrigation and power generation, reduction of sedimentation in water conveyances and reservoirs, employment and maintenance of ecological balance.

6. KEY INITIATIVES UNDER THE POLICY:

I. Climate Change Initiatives:
The Government of Pakistan Ratified the Kyoto Protocol earlier this year. A high level National Committee on Climate Change, chaired by the Prime Minister of Pakistan has been formed to review policies and monitor progress on climate change initiatives in the country. An autonomous Global Change Impact Studies Centre has been established that is engaged in research on impacts and adaptation to climate change in the country. The Centre is now well equipped with staff and resources and is engaged in model based research on climate change not only in Pakistan but also at the regional level. Ministry of Environment has been designated as the Designated National Authority (DNA) for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in the Ministry of Environment.

National operational strategy for CDM has been approved by the Prime Minister, offers all support for attracting investments and capitalizing the carbon business under the CDM initiative. CDM Cell has been established for approving and facilitating CDM projects in line with national sustainable development goals.

II. Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy:
Energy efficiency and the Renewable Energy is receiving increased focus in the light of high current and expected oil prices, Carbon Trading and Climate Change. Alternate Energy Development Board (AEDB), the focal point of Renewable energy, has formulated an investment friendly Wind Power Policy and already issued 32 Letters of Interests (LOI) for setting up of 50 MW wind farms in the Sindh area. The Solar Thermal policy and the energy conservation policy have been drafted and expected to be formalized in a few months in consultation with all stakeholders. More recently the CDWP has approved provision of stand-alone solar electricity for 300 villages in Balochistan and 100 villages in Sindh. AEDB is also working with the UNDP, GEF and other donors, in the area of Micro Hydro (Productive Use of Renewable Energy), Wind Mapping, and Energy Efficiency Improvements specially in the small and medium sized industries.

III. National Land Use and Forestry Programme:
A number of Plans and Policies including the Forest Sector Master Plan, National Forest Policy, Biodiversity Action Plan and Desertification Combat Action Plan, Maritime Policy and the Integrated Coastal Zone management Plan has been formulated and are at different stages of approval. National Forestry Policy has been submitted to the Cabinet for consideration. The draft policy proposes that the State-owned forests be regenerated and protected with intimate involvement of local communities in forests management. Local governments and union councils bring in more private marginal lands under forest cover within a defined legal framework to avoid alienation of land use. State-owned wastelands are leased out to tenants for expansion of forest cover from 4.8% to 6% in 2015, in support of the commitments made by the Government of Pakistan under the MDGs. Currently the Ministry of Environment is implementing 20 projects, including Tarbela Water Shed Projects; Mangrove Rehabilitation Project; Ayubia National Park Management Project; Ranage Management in Potohar track and Rachna Doab Forestry Project.

IV. Water and Sanitation:
The Ministry of Environment has formulated a draft Sanitation Policy, which will be submitted to the Cabinet for approval after it has been deliberated upon during the 2nd South Asian Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN) being held in Islamabad during the third quarter of 2006. Under the WES program the Ministry of Environment with the assistance of UNICEF is preparing a “Drinking Water for All” policy. Both the policies when implemented will support Pakistan achieve the targets set for the MDGS.

V. Water and Air quality monitoring:
Under the project “Establishment of Environmental Monitoring System” Environment Protection Agency (EPA) with the collaboration of district and local governments will effectively monitor ambient air quality, urban wastewater and industrial effluent discharge into rivers/water bodies to check air and water pollution. ECNEC has already approved Rs 1089 Million for the project to be implemented in 5 major cities of Pakistan with assistance from the Japanese Government.

VI. Bio-safety Guidelines:
“Pakistan Bio-safety Rules- 2005” have been approved and they address the complex issue of genetically modified living organisms (GMOs). Under the rules, specific licenses’ will be required for the import, export production of experimentation with the GMO.

VII. Legislation enforcement:
Currently, two tribunals are functioning in Lahore and Karachi. During the coming three years full financial and manpower support will be extended to make them fully functional to prosecute environmental violations. Initial Environmental Examination (IEE) and the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) are mandatory for the Public Sector Development Projects, and this program is being extended to the other projects also.

VIII. Programs and Projects:
MTDF allocates Rs. 28.3 Billion in the PSDP for 147 projects to be implemented in 2005 -2010 in the environment sector, compared with cumulated total of Rs. 5.5 Billion in the previous five years. Flagship is the Clean Drinking Water for All – 2005-2008” a three year federal program costing Rs 10.0 Billion. The program will install standardized water purification plants at convenient places in urban and rural areas. In the Water Supply and sanitation sector the MTDF proposes a National Drinking Water and Sanitation Policy focusing on clean drinking water for the entire population, improving /expanding water service delivery, water conservation and efficiency, and maximizing coverage of sanitation services. Donor projects and programs outside the PSDP include projects in Wind Power, Micro Hydro, Energy Efficiency and Conservation, Renewable Energy Development; Dry Lands and Desertification; Wetlands Management; indoor and outdoor air pollution controls; and forest rehabilitation and conservation projects.

7. ENVIRONMENTAL FISCAL REFORM:
The environmental fiscal reform (EFR) project launched recently by an international NGO could lay some misconceptions to rest. Fiscal and environmental issues are often seen to be mutually exclusive if not contradictory. The reality is that sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction are dependent in large part on the state of the environment. It has been noted across the developing world that environmental degradation hits the poor the hardest. Depletion of forest cover, land erosion and soil contamination lead to loss of livelihood, as do overfishing, destruction of natural hatcheries and other shocks to the marine and riverine ecosystems. Water and air pollution have a direct impact on health and overall quality of life. Social costs aside, an ailing workforce has a bearing on urban and rural productivity, besides putting additional pressure on a cash-strapped healthcare system that it is already bursting at the seams.

The scars of environmental degradation are already all too visible in Pakistan. Prolonged drought and erratic weather are damaging agriculture, the mainstay of the economy. In the country’s northern areas, ruthless logging by the timber mafia has made landslides a perennial threat to life and property. Large-scale erosion is also silting our reservoirs and rivers at a rapid rate, hampering irrigation as well as power generation and increasing the severity of seasonal floods. Financial managers for whom human misery is not a priority concern should remember that all this comes at a staggering monetary cost. If root causes are addressed, recouped revenues and funds currently tied up in damage control could be channelled towards socially productive avenues. To do this, the emphasis will have to shift from short-term gains to sustainable development aimed at equitable economic growth and poverty reduction. The architects of the three-year EFR project hope to engage government at both federal and provincial levels. That may well be their biggest challenge.