Gilgit’s Worsening Air Quality: Why Immediate Government Action on Clean Energy Is Now a National Necessity

By  Syed Shamsuddin

THE Ibex Media report of 4 December 2025 laid bare a truth residents of Gilgit have felt for years: the city is sinking each winter into a suffocating blanket of fog and smoke, while most of Gilgit-Baltistan fares no better. As temperatures fall sharply in the mountain valleys, the atmosphere becomes a stagnant chamber in which every particle of smoke, plastic, or dust accumulates — turning ordinary winter fog into a toxic haze.

This is not merely a seasonal inconvenience. It is a public-health crisis, a development crisis, and ultimately a national water-security crisis. And at the heart of this problem lies one simple reality:

People burn whatever they can find to survive the cold — because clean energy is unaffordable or unavailable.

Until this changes, no amount of awareness campaigns, bans or policing will deliver clean air. The solution demands direct, immediate intervention from the state.

Why the Fog Is Turning Deadly: The Human Factor at the Core

It becomes ascertainable that the scientific reasons behind the worsening winter haze — temperature inversions, valley trapping, stagnant air — are known. But the ultimate accelerant of pollution is the forced dependence of poor households on whatever combustible trash they have, including:

• wood

• raw coal

• polythene bags

• packaging plastics

• agricultural waste

• rubber scraps

• household garbage

Burning these fuels releases PM2.5, black carbon, toxic chemicals and microplastics into the air, creating the opaque, choking fog Gilgit experienced on 4 December.

And it is not because people want to pollute — it is because they have no other option to keep warm.

In a region where temperatures can drop below freezing for months, heating is not a luxury. It is survival.

A Regional Problem With National Consequences

What makes this situation uniquely dangerous is that Gilgit-Baltistan is home to the largest glacial reserves supplying Pakistan’s rivers.

Black carbon emitted from household burning does not stay in the air:

It settles on snow and glaciers, reducing reflectivity, accelerating melt, and weakening the “water towers of Pakistan.”

Thus, the air-quality crisis is directly linked to:

• water scarcity downstream

• altered river flows

• increased risk of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs)

• long-term destabilisation of Pakistan’s hydrology

This is why the issue can no longer be left to regional authorities alone. It is a matter of national survival.

Immediate Government Actions Needed — A Clean-Energy Rescue Plan

If the air of Gilgit and the lifespan of its glaciers are to be protected, the federal and regional governments must act immediately. The following steps are urgent and non-negotiable:

1. Emergency Winter Clean-Energy Subsidy for Poor Households

A targeted social-protection program must be activated to provide:

• heavily subsidised electricity,

• affordable LPG cylinders,

• clean pellet-based heating stoves, or

• solar-electric heating support (where feasible).

Households should not be driven into toxic burning merely to survive the cold.

This subsidy must prioritise low-income families, widows, remote-valley settlements and densely populated wards of Gilgit city.

2. A National “Electricity for Glaciers” Initiative

Gilgit-Baltistan deserves a dedicated national energy plan that:

• expands hydropower and micro-hydel generation;

• stabilises the regional grid;

• eliminates chronic winter load-shedding;

• ensures household-level access to sufficient winter heating electricity.

Every kilowatt delivered to a home reduces the burning of trash — and by extension reduces black carbon that shortens the life of glaciers.

Investing in GB’s energy is investing in Pakistan’s water security.

3. Ban on Plastic Burning — Supported by Alternatives, Not Policing Alone

A mere ban will fail unless people have affordable heating alternatives.

The government must therefore:

• distribute free or subsidised clean-fuel briquettes in winter;

• ensure reliable municipal waste collection;

• impose heavy penalties only on commercial-scale or deliberate burning.

Support first, enforcement after.

4. Winter Air-Quality Emergency Cell (Rapid-Response Mechanism)

A joint cell of:

• GB Environmental Protection Agency

• Municipal Committees

• Health Department

• Disaster Management Authority

should issue real-time advisories, coordinate energy support, and rapidly address open burning, illegal waste dumping and extreme AQI spikes.

5. Fast-Track Development of Regional Renewable Energy

Medium-term measures must include:

• completion of delayed hydropower projects,

• installation of village-level solar microgrids,

• solar-thermal heating units,

• incentives for clean-energy entrepreneurs in GB.

More clean generation means less pressure on households and less pollution trapped in the valleys.

Why This Is Not Optional

Without clean energy access:

• Gilgit’s air will grow thicker and more toxic,

• children and elderly will suffer rising respiratory illnesses,

• winter smog will become a permanent feature,

• and Pakistan’s glaciers — already under stress from climate change — will darken and melt at an even faster rate.

The time to act is now. Delayed action will push this crisis beyond control.

Conclusion: Clean Energy for the Poor Is the Only Sustainable Path Forward

Gilgit’s worsening fog and winter smog are not just atmospheric accidents — they are symptoms of an energy-poverty crisis. If the poorest households continue to rely on burning whatever waste they can find, the region’s air, glaciers, public health and water security will all deteriorate.

The only lasting solution is government-led provision of clean, affordable energy.

If Pakistan wants to safeguard its northern glaciers, it must first safeguard its northern households from the cold.