This is a picture of a beautiful flower.
Translation by Samuel Bakhtiyari

Tehran is dying, because it has no life left. The capital’s breaths have fallen to a dangerous level and a gray cloud has covered the sky; a cloud that brings no promise of rain, but rather a haze of smoke and pollutants that have settled in the lungs of Tehranis and brought the air to a state of warning. Since the beginning of the year, Tehran has been in a constant state of warning, to the point where the number of times has exceeded counting. Tehran’s breaths have become so tight that the head of the Quality Control Company has announced that the capital’s air has reached a state of warning. It seems that the sky of Tehran will never turn blue again.

Nowadays, the problem of air pollution in Tehran seems to be unsolvable. Taqi Ebtakar, the father of Masoumeh Ebtakar, the current head of Iran’s Environmental Protection Organization, was among the first university students to pay attention to the issue of air pollution in Tehran in 1970 and began efforts to address it. Taqi Ebtakar was a university professor and the head of Iran’s Environmental Protection Organization in the mid-1980s. In 1975, Ebtakar convinced the mayor of Tehran that the air quality plays a significant role in the health of Tehran’s citizens. The young Ebtakar is following in his father’s footsteps, but his efforts have not yet had any impact on the air quality in Tehran.

The issue of air pollution in Tehran became a challenge for the first time in 1979. With the start of the 8-year Iran-Iraq war, this issue was put on the back burner. After the end of the war, this issue once again raised concerns.

In 2001, the Comprehensive Plan for the Reduction of Air Pollution in Tehran (CPDAPT) was introduced as a 10-year plan. This plan included improving environmental standards, modernizing urban transportation, and upgrading fuel quality, among other measures. In 2005, the Comprehensive Plan for Transportation and Traffic in Tehran (CPTTT) was implemented with a special focus on reducing air pollution. This plan included expanding green belts around the city, modernizing taxi fleets, and implementing taxes on low-quality vehicles. However, after 11 years, the air in Tehran is still polluted, and thousands of people in the city suffer from this problem. What is the solution to this crisis?

Air pollution in Tehran is somewhat dependent on the geographical conditions of this city; the capital of Iran is surrounded by high mountains from three directions, making air circulation in Tehran difficult.

Tehran alone owns 25% of Iran’s economy. The population of this city has increased from 8.1 million people in 1956 to over 8 million people in 2011. The number of cars in Iran has increased from 2.1 million in 1979 to over 17 million in 2014. Nearly 7 million of these cars travel in Tehran. Most of these cars are domestically produced and have low quality. Global sanctions in the past 10 years have paralyzed progress and technology in the automotive industry and have also reduced the quality of fuel.

The total problem of air pollution is a complex issue that is not easy to solve. Therefore, it is not surprising that despite all efforts, this problem still persists.

In addition to technical problems, a quick look at Iranian newspapers reveals that this issue is also a political dilemma. Almost all political rivals attribute the air pollution in Tehran to the incompetence of their opposing faction.

Without a doubt, the competition between political factions is not ineffective in exacerbating this problem. On one hand, the Tehran municipality and on the other hand, the government are independently taking action to address this issue, but the lack of coordination between the institutions affiliated with these two bodies is a problem. The current mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, has experienced two electoral defeats in the presidential elections. Before him, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president of Iran, served as the mayor of Tehran for two years. During this time, Ahmadinejad was able to gain fame through oppressive laws, with which he was able to defeat Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the Expediency Discernment Council and a seasoned Iranian politician. This transformation in Iran’s political structure is indicative of the importance of the political position of the mayor of Tehran. Although Gholamhossein Karbaschi, the famous mayor of Tehran, fell victim to political pur

Tehran suffers from lack of integrated management. The need for integrated management in Tehran has been raised for several years now, but many opposing political groups are against giving more power to the municipality. As a result, making decisions to solve this problem seems difficult. These decisions may include halting any new residential or commercial developments, imposing heavy taxes on private car owners in Tehran, increasing fuel prices, and enforcing strict environmental standards on industries and increasing penalties for violators of these laws. However, none of the responsible organizations are willing to bear the political burden of these decisions. Therefore, solving this problem seems unlikely in the near future.

Explanation: This article has been published on the English website of Almanior and has been translated by Khat-e-Solh.