Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif and Minister for Environment Protection and Climate Change Marriyum Aurangzeb are in Geneva on a private visit—Sharif for a medical checkup, Aurangzeb as company.
The timing of the visit, in the thick of smog season in the Punjab, is coming across as tone-deaf. Air quality indices for cities in the province are through the roof, with Lahore and Multan competing for the world’s most polluted city, and Faisalabad not far behind. The public-health consequences and diminishing quality of life for the province’s millions have never been more severe.
For those struggling to breathe here, images of the Chief Minister and her senior minister surveying the streets of invigorating Geneva are too much. Aurangzeb, who has academic mooring in climate change and has communicated her ministry’s efforts on the issue, seems out of place abroad during this crisis. Her constituents, witnessing one of the worst air-quality crises in years, feel abandoned.
To be fair, there is little that is immediately achievable. The smog situation results from years of putrid and neglectful policies and an unwillingness to adapt lives and livelihoods in any meaningful way. Vehicular emissions, a leading cause, cannot be adequately addressed without significant expansion in mass transit options. Meanwhile, industrial expulsions continue unchecked as capitalist lobbies resist measures that could compromise their profits, and moral appeals to reduce their toxic contributions.
Suffering citizens don’t care about nuances. Most feel that, in solidarity, their leaders should breathe the same air they do, and share the consequences and miseries of policy failures. The absence of both the Chief Minister and one of her most prominent ministers feels like betrayal at a moment when Punjab’s residents want to feel seen and supported. This perceived abandonment fuels resentment and distrust—and these can be just as toxic as the smog itself.