Smog Chokes Baghdad as Oil-Fired Factories Belch Out Smoke 

The sun sets behind burning gas flares at the Dora (Daura) Oil Refinery Complex in Baghdad on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
The sun sets behind burning gas flares at the Dora (Daura) Oil Refinery Complex in Baghdad on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
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Smog Chokes Baghdad as Oil-Fired Factories Belch Out Smoke 

The sun sets behind burning gas flares at the Dora (Daura) Oil Refinery Complex in Baghdad on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
The sun sets behind burning gas flares at the Dora (Daura) Oil Refinery Complex in Baghdad on December 22, 2024. (AFP)

Iraqi grocery store owner Abu Amjad al-Zubaidi is grappling with asthma, a condition his doctor blames on emissions from a nearby power plant that fills his Baghdad neighborhood with noxious smoke.

In winter, a thick smog frequently envelops the city of nine million people as the fumes belched out by its many oil-fired factories are trapped by a layer of cold air.

The stench of sulphur permeates some districts, where brick and asphalt factories run on heavy fuel oil, taking advantage of generous state subsidies in the world's sixth biggest oil producer.

In a bid to tackle the worsening air quality, authorities recently shut down dozens of oil-fired factories and instructed others to phase out their use of heavy fuel oil.

"Every time I went to the doctor, he told me to stop smoking. But I don't smoke," Zubaidi told AFP.

When his doctor finally realized that Zubaidi lived just meters from the Dora power plant in south Baghdad, he told him its emissions were the likely cause of his asthma.

Power plants and refineries spew thick grey smoke over several areas of Baghdad.

"We can't go up to our roofs because of the fumes," Zubaidi said.

"We appealed to the prime minister, the government and parliament. Lawmakers have come to see us but to no avail," the 53-year-old complained.

He is not the only victim of air pollution. Many of his neighbors suffer from chronic asthma or allergies, he said.

Waste incineration and the proliferation of private generators in the face of patchy mains supply also contribute significantly to Baghdad's air pollution.

- Sixth most polluted -

In 2023, the air monitoring site IQAir ranked Iraq as the sixth most polluted country in terms of air quality.

Levels of the cancer-causing PM2.5 pollutants, microparticles small enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs, are seven to 10 times the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline values.

IQAir warned that exposure to PM2.5 "leads to and exacerbates numerous health conditions, including but not limited to asthma, cancer, stroke and lung disease".

It found that air pollution levels in Baghdad were "unhealthy for sensitive groups".

According to the US embassy, air quality in the capital frequently enters the red zone, leading to "health effects", particularly for vulnerable groups.

In October, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered a committee to investigate the causes of the "odorous sulphur emissions" so that they can be stopped.

Environment ministry spokesperson Amir Ali attributed the pollution to "industrial activities near the capital" -- particularly the brickworks and asphalt plants in the Nahrawan industrial zone in southeast Baghdad.

There lies "the largest number of factories responsible for the emissions", he said.

Ali also blamed private generators and refineries, including in Dora.

The pollution was exacerbated by "weather conditions, shifts in temperature, the direction of the wind, and increased humidity", his ministry said.

- Green belt -

In December, authorities announced the closure of 111 brickworks "due to emissions" that breach environmental standards, along with 57 asphalt plants in the Nahrawan industrial zone.

The industry ministry has also instructed brickworks to phase out their use of heavy fuel oil within 18 months and replace it with liquefied natural gas.

The government has banned waste incineration inside and outside landfills and has said it will improve "fuel quality at Dora refinery and address gas emissions and wastewater discharges".

Iraq is one of the world's largest oil producers, and sales of crude oil account for 90 percent of state revenues, so its transition to renewable fuels remains a distant goal.

Environmental activist Husam Sobhi urged authorities to keep up their efforts to phase out heavy fuel oil.

"It is difficult for a country like Iraq to let go of oil but we can use better quality oil than heavy fuel oil," Sobhi said.

He also called on planning authorities to put a stop to the city's sprawl into the surrounding countryside.

"Baghdad is in dire need of a green belt which would serve as a lung for the city to breathe," he said.



End of the Road for Kolkata’s Beloved Yellow Taxis 

This photograph taken on January 26, 2025 shows passengers riding Hindustan Ambassador yellow taxis along the Howrah bridge in Kolkata. (AFP)
This photograph taken on January 26, 2025 shows passengers riding Hindustan Ambassador yellow taxis along the Howrah bridge in Kolkata. (AFP)
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End of the Road for Kolkata’s Beloved Yellow Taxis 

This photograph taken on January 26, 2025 shows passengers riding Hindustan Ambassador yellow taxis along the Howrah bridge in Kolkata. (AFP)
This photograph taken on January 26, 2025 shows passengers riding Hindustan Ambassador yellow taxis along the Howrah bridge in Kolkata. (AFP)

Kolkata locals cherish their city's past, which is why many in the one-time Indian capital are mourning a vanishing emblem of its faded grandeur: a hulking and noisy fleet of stately yellow taxis.

The snub-nosed Hindustan Ambassador, first rolling off the assembly line in the 1950s with a design that barely changed in the decades since, once ruled India's potholed streets.

Nowadays it is rarely spotted outside Kolkata, where it serves as the backbone of the metropolitan cab fleet and a readily recognizable symbol of the eastern city's identity.

But numbers are dwindling fast, and a court ruling means those that remain -- lumbering but still sturdy -- will be forced off the roads entirely in the next three years.

"I love my car like my son," Kailash Sahani, who has sat behind the wheel of an Ambassador cab for the past four decades, told AFP.

"It's a simple car -- no electronics, no frills," the 70-year-old added. "It's unbelievable how much things have changed... The end of these taxi cars also marks our end."

Sahani is among thousands of Kolkata cabbies relinquishing their vehicles in line with tough emissions standards introduced in 2009 to ease the city's endemic smog problem.

Only around 2,500 Ambassador taxis were still working at the start of this year, down from 7,000 a year earlier, according to Bengal Taxi Association figures.

Another 1,000 will be retired this year, and West Bengal state transport minister Snehasis Chakraborty told AFP that the remainder will be gone by the end of 2027.

"The car is strong. Parts and maintenance are cheap and if it breaks down, it's easy to find a mechanic," said Bengal Taxi Association spokesman Sanjeeb Roy.

Their disappearance, he added, "represents all that's wrong with India's changing economy".

- Litany of defects -

The Hindustan Ambassador was the cornerstone of India's automotive industry for decades from its 1957 debut at a factory on Kolkata's northern outskirts.

Modelled on a similarly regal sedan car from Britain's now long-defunct Morris Motors, the car was a triumphant achievement of industry in the first years of India's history as an independent nation.

A deluxe model, its windows adorned with lace curtains, was for years the main means of conveyance for government ministers and captains of industry.

But the car's shortcomings also served as a reminder of deep structural problems with the quasi-socialist economic system that prevailed in India at the time.

Buyers sat on wait lists for years because pervasive red tape stopped Hindustan Motors from raising production to meet demand, while a near-monopoly on sales left no incentive to maintain quality standards.

That gave rise to an oft-repeated joke about the litany of defects found in the average "Amby": the only thing in the car that doesn't make a sound is its horn.

Market reforms from the 1980s onwards saw the Ambassador muscled off Indian roads by more modern vehicles, and production was halted entirely in 2014 after years of flatlining demand.

- 'Get with the times' -

Kolkata, the headquarters of Hindustan Motors, is the last place where the cars are seen in any great number -- a reminder of the tethers binding the city to India's past.

Grand public buildings evoke the immense riches that flowed through the city's tree-lined boulevards back when it was the second-largest city in the British Empire, after London.

Nobel laureate poet and polymath Rabindranath Tagore was born and died in Kolkata, where the national anthem he composed was sung for the first time during India's long independence struggle.

The city is also renowned for its thrumming nightlife, with crowded and dimly lit restaurants serving up chicken Kiev alongside the same suite of old-world European staples that have been listed on their menus since the late colonial era.

But its importance has shrunk dramatically since that heyday, first with the relocation of India's capital to Delhi in 1911 and then with Mumbai's ascension as the country's most important commercial hub.

Many of Kolkata's younger generations have left in search of better opportunities elsewhere, giving it a median age at least six years older than other big Indian cities, according to census data.

The city's skewed demographics prompted its pre-eminent novelist Amit Chaudhuri to once quip that while Delhi was for seeking power and Mumbai was for chasing riches, Kolkata was for visiting one's parents.

"People like me are under pressure to get with the times," retired Kolkata schoolteacher Utpal Basu, 75, told AFP.

"Old cars go, new ones come," he added. "But it will break my heart when the city loses another icon."