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What-If

Explore what could change.

Choose a place, a documented issue and one of its documented interventions, then set how far it goes.

ILLUSTRATIVE SCENARIO — NOT A SCIENTIFIC PREDICTION. Built from documented causes, impacts and solutions plus general qualitative patterns. It contains no modelled numbers.

3 · Intervention
PilotScaledTransformative

Adopted across much of the area, with dedicated budgets and enforcement.

Illustrative scenario

What if Pakistan took a scaled approach to “Cleaner brick kiln technology”?

Starting point · documented

AirSeverity: Critical
Winter smog in Lahore

Seasonal smog episodes sharply reduce air quality across the city each winter.

The intervention · documented

Cleaner brick kiln technology

Conversion of traditional kilns to zigzag firing, which burns fuel more completely, has been mandated and rolled out in Punjab.

Reduces particulate emissions per brick produced; effect on city-wide concentrations depends on compliance and coverage.

Schematic direction of change

Air quality tends to respond relatively quickly once emissions fall, although weather and regional sources still drive episodes.

Schematic, unitless illustration: relative pressure over time without the intervention compared with the intervention in place. Not based on measured data.NowLonger term →Relative pressure (unitless)
Without the intervention With the interventionSchematic shape only — no data, units or dates.

Causes this could address

  • Temperature inversionCool, stable winter air forms a lid over the Punjab plain, preventing pollutants from dispersing upward.
  • Road transportA large, ageing vehicle fleet with varying fuel and engine standards emits particulates and precursor gases.
  • Brick kilns and industryTraditional kilns and industrial combustion in and around the city release particulates, especially where cleaner technologies have not been adopted.
  • Regional crop residue burningPost-harvest burning across the wider Punjab region, on both sides of the border, adds smoke that travels into the airshed.
  • Domestic and waste burningBurning of solid fuel for heating and open burning of waste add localised particulate emissions.

Impacts that could ease

  • Respiratory and cardiovascular healthFine particulate exposure is associated with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease and stroke; children and older people are most affected.
  • Disrupted schooling and workAuthorities have closed schools and restricted activity during severe episodes, interrupting education and income.

Wider reach at higher intensity is an assumption of this illustration.

How change might unfold

  1. Near term

    Visible changes near targeted sources, especially where monitoring is dense.

  2. Medium term

    Fewer severe episodes if reductions cover the main local and regional sources.

  3. Long term

    Health benefits accumulate as long-term exposure falls.

Faded stages are less likely to be reached at scaled intensity.

What this would not change

Pollution transported from outside the area, and seasonal meteorology, remain beyond local control.

What it depends on

  • Sustained funding and institutional capacity
  • Consistent enforcement and monitoring
  • Local stakeholder support
  • Participation of affected communities

ILLUSTRATIVE SCENARIO — NOT A SCIENTIFIC PREDICTION. Built from documented causes, impacts and solutions plus general qualitative patterns. It contains no modelled numbers.

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