THE Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayan foothills straddling Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, India, and Pakistan are increasingly getting a bad rap as the global hotspot of air pollution.

Home to over two billion people who breathe air that is considered unsafe by the WHO, nine of the world`s 10 cities with the worst air quality are in South Asia. A combination of everything tailpipe emissions, crop residue-burning, chimneys spewing deadly fumes from industries and power plants, and smoke from stoves fired by cow dung or wood is responsible for millions of premature deaths each year.

To combat air pollution, we must first understand PM2.5 the minuscule particles that fuel it. At just 2.5 micrometres, they`re far thinner than a strand of human hair and only visible under an electron microscope. These tiny particles can travel vast distances, defying boundaries.

Delhi, with an annual concentration of 98.6 micrograms of PM2.5 particles per cubic metre, Lahore 80 µg/m3, Dhaka 70.2 5.0 µg/m3and Kathmandu 49.95.0 µg/m3, allhave levels higher than the safe air quality threshold of 5.0 µg/m3 set by the WHO, and which countries like Finland, Norway and Sweden have been able to attain. The Air Quality Life Index`s 2024 report states that the average person living in South Asia would gain 3.5 years in their lives if WHO guidelines are met.

While it may be challenging to reach WHO levels, South Asia aspires to keep the annual average PM2.5 concentration below 35 µg/m3by 2035.

Ali Moeen Malik believes Pakistan can leapfrog towards attaining cleaner air by 2035. Co-founder of the startup ezBike, he says the answer lies in popularising electric vehicles. With surplus electricity, if Pakistan can retrofit the nearly 30m petrol-powered motorbikes and convert them into e-bikes, cities in Pakistan can reduce CO2 levels in the air by over 50 per cent, since `motorbikes are the biggest polluters in the transport sector`. With over 40,000 e-bikes across Pakistan, he is confident the number can double by next year with a little hand-holding and oodles of will on the government`s part.

E-bikes are just one of many innovative solutions emerging across South Asia to combat air pollution. The region is strewn with amazing ideas, but none have been scaled up or realised by governments. For instance, a husband-wife duo (in their 80s and 70s respectively) in Delhi have created a green oasis at home, surrounded by 15,000 plants irrigated with fish tank water. Their home boasts an AQI of just 15.

They also run online courses teaching others how to embrace eco-friendly lifestyles.Countries and citizens across South Asia can learn from each other. Pakistan could draw inspiration from initiatives like the one in West Bengal, India, where 12m students were provided bicycles to promote cleaner transportation, or from Bangladesh`s use of brick kiln trackers to identify and monitor polluting kilns.

Conversely, other South Asian countries can learn from Yasmeen Lari`s `barefoot social architecture` programme.

Pakistan`s first female architect trains villagers to build eco-friendly products that they can sell to each other. Last year, her organisation provided training to a team of villagers from Malawi, who are replicating her model in their country. `The first item they have taken up to build is the smokeless earthen stove,` she said. While energy-efficient mud stoves are being built all over the region, her stoves have an edge as they have lime in the mud, which absorbs carbon in the air.

The more we understand air pollution, the clearer it becomes that it is one areawhere South Asian countries just cannot work in silos.

Countries will have to collaborate and cooperate across borders and with multiple agencies. According to a World Bank report, in major cities in South Asia, over 50pc of air pollutionis not local but transboundary in nature.

Fortunately, unbeknownst to many, these countries have been engaged in a quiet dialogueforthe past three decades.

From the Male Declaration in 1998 on control and prevention of air pollution, to the Kathmandu Roadmap when the first Science Policy Dialogue was held in Nepal in 2022, followed by the Thimpu Outcome with the second SPD, held last year in Bhutan, where countries aspired to reach the `35 by 35` goal, a strong consensus is emerging on the importance of sharing information, taking collective and costeffective action, private-public partnerships, ensuring science guides policymaking, and emphasising the role of regional institutions but most importantly, working towards building trust.

However, everyone agrees science diplomacy alone can only get you that far.

All these conversations will remain relegated within the confines of conference halls if political relations in the region remain choppy. • The wnter is a Karachi-based independent joumalist.