The Silent Killer in Our Air
As black, sooty plumes of air pour from the tailpipes of countless diesel buses weaving through Kathmandu’s streets, they poison our air and dull our once-blue skies. Yet, we remain silent. This raises a critical question: Do we truly understand the damage this polluted air is causing to our health?
Do we realize how this toxic air is affecting our throats, lungs, tissues, and overall quality of life? Are we aware of its impact on our children, the elderly, and everyone in between? In Kathmandu, air pollution has become the most significant threat to our lives. It now poses a greater health risk than common issues like high blood pressure, malnutrition, and tobacco use. On average, we are losing 3.4 years of our lives due to this invisible enemy. In other words, the amount of life lost to air pollution is arguably more than what any single health intervention could restore.
Air pollution has rightfully become our public enemy number one.
A Growing Health Crisis
More Nepali adults die from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), an airway disease caused by pollution and smoke, than from any other condition. This is unusual compared to most countries where heart diseases are the primary cause of adult mortality. Over the past decade, the burden of death and disability due to COPD has increased by a staggering 30% in Nepal.
We fail to grasp the severity of this situation because, every now and then, we express concern about the poor air quality in Kathmandu. However, the real issue may be our lack of courage to take action. If we were brave enough, we would have already done something about it. What does being brave really mean? Does it involve being ready to fight? In that sense, we might be the bravest people, as we are quick to start conflicts over minor slights. We burn tires when diesel prices rise, shut down highways when a bus hits a chicken, and even attempted to set the city on fire in the past due to perceived slights from celebrities.
Yet, we do not take to the streets to confront an enemy that causes coughing fits and eye irritation for millions of us. We do not rise up against an enemy that makes our lives miserable and cuts our lives short by 3.4 years.
A Solvable Problem
We don’t have to accept this grim reality. The problem of grey skies, polluted air, and an unlivable city is solvable. Cities like Bogota, Seoul, and Beijing have proven that with strong commitment and prioritization of pollution control, change is possible. Kathmandu can follow suit.
Vehicular pollution is a major contributor to our air quality crisis. The smoke-belching diesel vehicles must be removed from our streets, along with all others that emit harmful pollutants. A good starting point is ensuring that vehicle emission testing is not a farce, where individuals can pay to pass tests while their vehicles emit dark smoke. Vehicles failing these tests should be taken off the roads. If the government is serious about transitioning to electric vehicles, public diesel buses should be the first target. Not only would this reduce pollution, but it would also cut down on diesel imports and make better use of the clean electricity we are beginning to generate in abundance.
Moving Toward Electric Public Transport
We don’t have to stop there. Given the severe impact of diesel buses on air quality, it’s time to require that all new buses registered for public transport in Kathmandu be electric. This has been done elsewhere, and we can do it now, especially since we face challenges in finding reliable buyers for our clean power. Although electric buses are expensive, we could create feasible financing mechanisms to fund their purchase. Banks could offer loans, and if interest payments are an obstacle, we could use the millions of dollars we receive annually from carbon credit mechanisms to subsidize these loans.
Additionally, we could use this financing model to encourage small private firms currently dominating our urban transit system to transition into a public-benefit-oriented utility. Municipal and government entities could become shareholders alongside private operators. Existing private operators could be given proportional shares in this utility if they agree to replace their polluting internal combustion buses with electric ones. Many cities worldwide have successfully used similar public-private partnerships to build their transportation infrastructure.
With one strategic policy move, we could eliminate the main source of pollution suffocating Kathmandu’s air while creating a green transport utility from the remnants of our current bus system. These are practical recommendations that the government could implement within a few weeks.
Addressing Other Pollution Sources
We could also target brick kilns and ambient dust, which are significant contributors to air pollution. With a simple policy change, the government could address these issues. Not only are these solutions feasible, but they would immediately improve the lives of over 3 million residents. They would also show the public and the world that the government is committed to protecting its citizens.
This approach would also serve as a clear message to the world that we recognize air pollution as an existential threat and are ready to confront it. The open-air gas chamber that New Delhi has become serves as a stark reminder that inaction is no longer an option for us.
