Vice President Pakistan Peoples Party and Chairperson Senate Standing Committee on Climate Change, Sherry Rehman, cited AQLI in a speech before the Senate session on the federal budget 2025–26. She underscored an over 50 percent cut in the pollution control budget and the drop in environment protection funds from Rs7.2 billion to Rs3.1 billion. Senator Rehman also criticized the imposition of 18 percent GST on electric and hybrid vehicles and said that imposing taxes on EVs in a climate emergency would be counterproductive.“As long as old, smoke-emitting vehicles run on our motorways, air pollution will keep worsening"..."Currently, air pollution causes 128,000 deaths every year in Pakistan,” she said, adding as per the Air Quality Life Index 2024, nearly the entire population of Pakistan breathes toxic air. “And the World Bank estimates air pollution costs us 7 per cent of GDP annually.”

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