Environmental pollution reaches alarming level

KARACHI - Environmental pollution has reached an alarming level in major cities of the countries due to the rising number of vehicles on the roads, however, the inability of concerned authorities to check rising level of carbon emission is also responsible for rampant the pollution, said National Forum on Environment and Health (NFEH) in its report on Thursday.NFEH has issued a "fact sheet on environment protection", on the eve of 'World Environment Day' in which NFEH said that lack of political will and pressures from the influential were the major reasons behind slow progress in the implementation of environmental standards. According to the experts, the level of carbon in the air in big cities is very high. In Karachi this is higher, up to 13 percent, than the normal level of 0.79 per cent out of 100 milligrams. This included the presence of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other particles. Major contributors are thick smoke emitting public transport vehicles and emission from industries.Environmental protection has ever been remained the lowest priority of every government in Pakistan since this issue gained publicity worldwide after the Earth Summit of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992.Though Pakistan has introduced National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS) in 1997 for enforcement in next ten years, the progress is still very slow and implementation has been less than 10 percent in industrial units. The reasons are the lack of political will, pressure from influential and corruption. Environmental Tribunals, which were set up in the same year under Environment Act, have been inactive for one year due to judiciary crisis.Sindh government and then City government had twice launched campaign to impose ban on polythene bags, but failed to achieve desired results for various reasons. According to reports, about 364 metric tons of the total solid waste generated in the city every month is consisted of polythene bags. link....