Pakistan may seek UAE assistance with artificial rain to deal with smog next year

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's top climate change official said on Saturday his country was thinking of using the cloud-seeding technology developed by the United Arab Emirates to address the problem of smog next year.

Residents of Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore recently asked the authorities to take appropriate measures after their city was declared one of the most polluted places in the world where people were surrounded by smog.

The prime minister's advisor on climate change Malik Amin Aslam told ARY, a private news channel, during an interview that the current government had taken several steps to deal with the issue, though he admitted these measures were "still not enough."

He maintained the authorities had determined that 40 percent of smog in Lahore and other places in the province of Punjab were caused by the transportation sector, adding that there was a policy to move toward better fuel and electric vehicles.

Asked about crop burning, he mentioned recent international data that maintained that 90 percent of it was happening in India.

While he advocated a "regional dialogue" to deal with the problem originating from across the border, he agreed that the country needed short term solutions as well.

"I had a conversation with Dubai's climate change minister," he said. "They use cloud seeding to make rain. This can be one solution which we are studying at the moment. We may need to rely on that technology to make artificial rain two or three times next year."

The UAE became one of the first countries in the Gulf region to use cloud-seeding technology in recent decades to address water shortages.

Its scientific experiments in the area succeeded in producing rain storms in its desert regions.

Recently, its National Centre of Meteorology said that cloud seeding could even limit global warming and mitigate its impact.

Aslam praised the UAE authorities for "effectively employing" the technology to their benefit.