Lessons from Beijing for Lahore: Toward an Evidence-Based National Clean Air Policy for Pakistan
Background: Pakistan was ranked the most polluted country in IQAir’s 2025 report, with a national annual mean PM2.5 of 67.3μg/m³, roughly 13 times the WHO guideline, and nine of the world’s 25 most polluted cities. The country adopted its first National Clean Air Policy in 2023, yet Lahore still sits near 90μg/m³. Beijing brought its annual mean from close to 90 down to 30.5μg/m³ between 2013 and 2024. Objective: To identify which parts of Beijing’s clean air governance can reasonably be carried over to Lahore, and to locate the gaps in Pakistan’s current framework. Methods: Qualitative, desk-based comparative policy analysis of peer-reviewed studies, official documents, multilateral project records and monitoring reports available to October 2026, organized around eight governance domains. Findings: Beijing’s improvement rested on a time-bound national plan with binding targets, simultaneous control of coal, industry, vehicles and dust, official accountability, and openly reported monitoring. Pakistan’s framework is advisory rather than statutory, proposes an annual PM2.5 target of 35μg/m³ against an existing standard of 15, had minimal regulatory monitoring outside Punjab in late 2023, lacks an agreed public account of Lahore’s pollution sources, has no airshed-level authority, and gives the health sector no defined role. The methods behind Lahore’s competing source estimates cannot be ranked with confidence, and eye-disease odds ratios from lower-exposure settings cannot be transferred to Lahore. Conclusions: Eight reforms are proposed, starting with a statutory basis for ambient standards and an independent source apportionment for Lahore. The reforms take their design logic from Beijing; they do not copy China’s institutional model. Personal accountability of named officials is placed at provincial level, where legal authority sits.