Open Letter to UN Secretary-General
Pakistan’s Air Pollution Is a Climate Time Bomb
In his letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Engineer Arshad H Abbasi warns that Pakistan’s toxic air pollution—driven by outdated Euro-2 fuels, stalled refinery upgrades, rampant fuel smuggling, and the adulteration of LPG—has become a public health emergency and a hidden driver of climate disasters He also highlights regulatory failures, corruption and inaction, that allow dangerous practices to persist. Abbasi urges urgent international engagement to help Pakistan end fuel adulteration, upgrade to Euro-6 standards, halt smuggling, ban CO₂ mixing in LPG, and establish independent monitoring, warning that continued neglect will further intensify floods, heatwaves, and climate instability.
Letter to the UN Secretary-General
His Excellency António Guterres
Secretary-General, United Nations
Your Excellency,
I write to you with a heavy heart and the urgency of a citizen whose homeland is being suffocated by a crisis both silent and devastating: toxic air pollution and its deadly link to climate change.
For Pakistan, climate change is no longer a distant threat—it is a lived nightmare. Each year, our skies darken, our summers grow hotter, and our floods become more catastrophic. Cloudbursts strike with unprecedented ferocity, unleashing floods and landslides across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, Karachi, and Azad Jammu & Kashmir. These are not natural accidents but man-made disasters, fueled by pollution, smuggling, and corruption.
The science is undeniable. Pakistan’s air is among the dirtiest in the world. IQAir data (2013–2024) shows Lahore—once celebrated as the “city of gardens”—reduced to the “city of smog,” with winter PM2.5 levels 25 times above WHO safety limits. Karachi, Islamabad, Peshawar, and Faisalabad suffer similarly. This is not only destroying the health of our children but also destabilizing our climate. Polluted air, laden with aerosols, alters rainfall patterns, replacing steady rains with violent cloudbursts. The catastrophic floods of 2022, which submerged one-third of Pakistan and displaced 33 million people, cannot be separated from this grim reality.
The root causes are well-known. Pakistan still burns Euro-2 fuels, decades behind global standards, while India has already upgraded to Euro-6. Refinery upgrades to Euro-5 have stalled, requiring $6 billion yet facing endless delays. Compounding this, 30–40% of Pakistan’s fuel supply consists of illicitly smuggled Iranian petrol and diesel, contaminated with sulfur and toxins that poison our skies and our people.
A further tragedy unique to Pakistan is the adulteration of LPG with carbon dioxide to increase weight. This practice has caused countless cylinder explosions, killing many, while continuing to poison our air, intensifying smog, worsening floods, and fueling deadly heatwaves.
Your Excellency, I must ask: how can Pakistan appeal for international climate funds while permitting such crimes at home? How can we seek global solidarity while our regulators—entrusted with protecting citizens—ignore corruption, smuggling, and adulteration?
I have already submitted a detailed report titled “The Dark Clouds of Pakistan” to UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner, urging UNDP to guide Pakistan’s government. https://crss.pk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/The-Dark-Clouds-of-Pakistan.pdf
I now appeal directly to you to intervene and urge the Government of Pakistan to:
- End fuel adulteration immediately, with international oversight where necessary.
- Upgrade refineries to Euro-6 standards, bringing Pakistan in line with global norms.
- Halt cross-border smuggling of toxic fuels.
- Ban the mixing of CO₂ into LPG and hold perpetrators accountable. I submitted a proposal to OGRA, Pakistan’s Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority, recommending QR code technology on LPG cylinders from terminals to consumers to ensure quality and safety. Instead of adopting this life-saving innovation, higher OGRA officials rejected the initiative.
- Establish independent, real-time monitoring of fuel quality and emissions. I have already designed and submitted a mechanism to OGRA, yet the regulator refuses to implement it.
Air pollution is the hidden driver of Pakistan’s climate collapse. It fuels floods, intensifies heatwaves, and robs children of their future. Every day of inaction means more lives lost, more homes destroyed, more futures erased.
Your Excellency, Pakistan stands at a crossroads: either we act decisively to clean our skies, or we continue on the path of suffocation and collapse. I urge you—not only as Secretary-General of the United Nations but as a human being who has stood with Pakistan in times of crisis—to press for immediate action. I respectfully request that you establish an international panel of experts to urgently study air pollution in Pakistan, its causes, remedies, and impacts on climate change.
I also urge you to instruct the Government of Pakistan to adopt clean-air innovations and, equally importantly, to ensure an enabling environment for those of us working to address this menace. This is not only about saving Pakistan—it is about protecting the global climate, safeguarding millions of lives, and upholding justice for a people already suffering on the frontlines of a crisis they did not create.
With urgency and hope,Sincerely,
Engineer Arshad H Abbasi
BOG member CRSS
ahabasi@gmail.com -00-92-333-5144405
(The views and assertions expressed in this letter are entirely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views, policies, or positions of CRSS, which provides this platform solely to encourage informed dialogue.)