Two back-to-back post-monsoon cyclonic rain spells temporarily cleaned Nepal’s air, keeping pollution levels within the healthy range with AQI remaining around 50 for nearly a month—a rare occurrence in a non-monsoon season in the past decade. But with no rainfall expected soon, air quality is once again deteriorating. The persistent La Niña pattern is projected to bring another dry winter in the entire sub-continent, similar to past where 75 percent rainfall decline was observed. These prolonged dry conditions not only allow pollution to accumulate but also heighten the risk of forest fires in late winter and spring that again lead to cascading impacts of pollution. Combined with the influx of transboundary polluted air carried by the westerlies, this pushes air quality to dangerously hazardous levels.
Now, as the clear blue skies and stunning Himalayan views fade—moments cherished by many nature lovers—the seasonal pall of haze will once again settle over the Kathmandu Valley and many other parts of Nepal. More than just a public health crisis, this creeping suffocation is a stark, daily reminder of deep systemic policy failures. Additionally, the Ethiopian volcanic eruption on Nov 23 is feared to deteriorate the air quality of Western Nepal, which may ultimately float to Kathmandu and elsewhere as volcanic ashes have been found in the atmosphere in New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
Nepal consistently ranks among Asia's most polluted nations, with national air pollution levels cutting average life expectancy by approximately 4.6 years according to the Air Quality Life Index. This crisis is particularly concentrated in the capital, where Kathmandu's annual average PM2.5 concentration reached 51.9 μg/m³ in 2023—over ten times the WHO's safe guideline and earning it the position of the 10th most polluted capital city globally. While the recent World Bank ‘Breathing Heavy’ report confirming air pollution as Nepal's leading killer has rightfully caused alarm, the institutional response remains fragmented and lethargic. The science is unequivocal, the economic cost—a staggering 3.5 percent of GDP annually, or over $400m lost each year—is crippling, and the human toll is immense, with over 42,000 premature deaths annually nationwide, worsening the health and shortening the Nepali’s life. Yet, decisive action is hamstrung by jurisdictional ambiguities, chronically weak enforcement, and a critical blind spot in addressing the polluted air that blows across our open borders. The question is no longer about diagnosing the illness, but about treating the paralysis in our governance.
A siloed battle against a unified threat
The primary failure lies in the lack of a unified, empowered command structure. Currently, the responsibility for clean air is scattered across a mosaic of entities with overlapping mandates and insufficient accountability. The Ministry of Forests and Environment (MoFE) sets broad goals, the Department of Environment (DoE) is tasked with monitoring and regulation but lacks adequate human resources for widespread enforcement, the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport (MoPIT) manages a vehicle fleet it did not design, and local municipalities, chronically under-resourced, handle the Herculean tasks of waste management and construction dust control.
This siloed approach is a recipe for inaction and blame-shifting. For instance, the DoE may set emission standards for brick kilns, but without robust enforcement capacity and direct coordination with local governments, outdated, polluting Fixed Chimney Bull’s Trench Kilns continue to operate with impunity. The National Ambient Air Quality Standards (2012) exist, but they are severely outdated, with PM2.5 limits nearly four times more lenient than the current WHO guidelines, and are not legally enforceable in a way that holds specific agencies accountable for achieving them.
The solution is not another committee, but a powerful, dedicated entity required to ensure the healthy air for all. The urgent need is for a Valley-specific, Integrated Clean Air Authority (ICAA), established through an Act of Parliament. This body must be chaired at the highest level of government and include representation from all key ministries, mayors of the three metropolitan cities and technical experts. Its mandate should be clear: to create and, crucially, to implement a legally binding Clean Air Action Plan with specific, time-bound emission reduction targets, which ensures the country’s constitutional arrangements into action in every sector. The ICAA must have the power to direct line ministries, allocate specific budgets for clean air initiatives and hold underperforming agencies publicly accountable. It would be the single point of failure—or success—for the valley’s air quality.
The transboundary blind spot
A critical and often politicized gap in our national strategy is the formal acknowledgment and quantification of transboundary pollution. Research from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and others consistently shows that during the winter and pre-monsoon seasons, external sources can contribute between 30 percent to 50 percent of Kathmandu’s particulate pollution. This pollution originates from beyond our borders, primarily from the dense cluster of coal-fired power plants, heavy industries, and widespread post-harvest agricultural burning in the Indo-Gangetic Plain.
However, our official discourse often uses this as an excuse for inaction on local sources, rather than as a catalyst for a sophisticated, two-pronged strategy. The Department of Environment's growing network of real-time air quality monitors is robust enough to detect these pollution inflows, but we lack the formalized data-sharing agreements and joint source-apportionment studies with India that are necessary to move from anecdotal evidence to irrefutable diplomatic fact. The current state of affairs, where we monitor the problem but lack the mechanisms to address its external causes, is an exercise in futility.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) must be formally integrated into the national clean air agenda. Air pollution must be elevated from an environmental concern to a critical, non-negotiable item in bilateral and regional talks, particularly within the frameworks of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and direct Nepal-India dialogues. The goal should be to establish a formal Joint Commission on Transboundary Air Pollution. This commission’s work would include:
Real-time data exchange: Creating a shared platform for air quality and meteorological data.
Coordinated source apportionment: Conducting joint scientific studies to definitively quantify source contributions from both sides of the border.
Early warning systems: Developing alerts for cross-border pollution events, such as large-scale agricultural burning or industrial emissions.
Coordinated policy: Aligning policies on seasonal burning and promoting shared standards for industrial emissions and vehicle fuels across the region.
Loss and damage: Securing justice
The significant contribution of transboundary pollution to our national burden introduces a pivotal and underutilized concept in climate and environmental justice: Loss and Damage. This principle, now operationalized through a dedicated fund at the UN level, acknowledges that polluters should bear the costs of the harm they cause to others. When a substantial portion of our health burden, economic losses and environmental degradation is driven by cross-border emissions, the question of compensation and support becomes not just rhetorical, but a matter of national interest and justice.
Nepal’s diplomatic and environmental corps must pivot from a passive to an active stance. We must task our research institutions, the National Planning Commission (NPC) and the Ministry of Health, with meticulously documenting the health and economic impacts directly attributable to transboundary pollution spikes. This involves sophisticated epidemiological studies that link hospital admission rates for asthma and cardiovascular diseases to specific cross-border haze events, and economic modeling that quantifies the lost tourism revenue and agricultural yields.
This robust, evidence-based national dossier must then be used to actively engage in global forums, such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to advocate for the operationalization of Loss and Damage funding arrangements to address harms caused by transboundary anthropogenic pollution. This is not about fostering conflict, but about applying established principles of justice to secure the financial resources needed to build national resilience. These funds could be directly allocated to:
Strengthen our public health system to treat pollution-related illnesses.
Install air filtration systems in every school and hospital in the valley.
Subsidize the transition to Zig-Zag technology for brick kilns and clean energy for SMEs.
Invest in a modern, zero-emission public transit system.
From inaction to action
The way forward requires moving from plans to legally-mandated, adequately-funded actions:
Legislate and empower: The federal government must pass a Comprehensive Clean Air Act within the next parliamentary session. This Act should formally establish the Integrated Clean Air Authority, mandate the adoption of WHO-aligned air quality standards and provide the DoE and other agencies with true enforcement power, including meaningful, deterrent-level financial penalties for non-compliance.
Diplomatize the issue: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in close consultation with MoFE, must launch a formal, high-level diplomatic initiative with India within the next year to establish the joint commission on transboundary air pollution. The first step could be a bilateral technical workshop, leading to a memorandum of understanding.
Quantify, claim and invest: The NPC, within two years, must complete and publish a national assessment on the economic loss and damage from transboundary air pollution. Concurrently, the MoFE must develop a pipeline of bankable projects focused on air quality improvement, ready to be funded by both domestic budgets and international climate finance, including the Loss and Damage Fund.
The haze over Kathmandu is a veil obscuring not just our mountains, but our political will and institutional courage. We have the data, we understand the sources and we know the devastating cost. The gaps are no longer in knowledge, but in governance, diplomacy and accountability.
By empowering a single authority with a clear mandate, making transboundary pollution a non-negotiable core of our foreign policy and championing the principle of loss and damage with evidence and resolve, we can finally clear the air. The health of millions, the vitality of our economy and the integrity of our shared environment depend on this decisive break from the paralysis of the past.
Upadhyay is environment and atmospheric science expert, Uprety is climate and disaster risk reduction expert
