Summary Pakistan had no time left to be wasted: Amin Aslam
ISLAMABAD (APP) - Adviser to Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam Thursday said the German Watch has ranked Pakistan at second place among the countries bearing many losses due to serious global climate change impacts.
Under the Watch’s vulnerability index of the countries owing to environmental degradation and it’s consequent catastrophes was number 4 for facing extreme disaster events, the Adviser added.
Speaking at the public hearing of Climate Change Caucus held here with Senator Sherry Rehman in chair, he said, “The climate change issue has also become politically important where the two recent examples are worth mentioning here.
The Belt and Road Initiative Conference comprised two main sessions where one was dedicated to climate change where around 30 head of states from the world participated and prior to this Prime Minister Imran Khan during the previous Cabinet meeting dedicated last 10 minutes to discuss adverse environmental impacts on the country.”
“The reasons for blatant environmental degradation are our topography and geography which is the home to 12 ecological zones from the snow-covered top reaches in the North to wide deserts and sprawling coasts in the South gives ample setting for the occurrence of calamities,” he added.
“The melting of Shisper Glacier is a live incident where a kilometer long glacier with 3 kilometer thickness surging from a mountain top. It is a horrible spectacle for me where it has rushed forward 3 kilometers in 6 months with population sitting in the middle of its course.
National Disaster Management Authority and district government has taken requisite measures this not what Pakistan dreamt of. We are bearing the brunt of the problems made by others its not because of our indigenous efforts,” the Adviser said.
Referring to the measures taken to meet the challenge of climate change, the Adviser mentioned that there had been Climate Change Policy passed in 2017 in place.
“During my visit to South Korea I discover that Pakistan is number 1 in one global indicator and that has been about having excellent policy work done but no implementation on those polices,” he expressed.
“However, along with this policy the incumbent government has developed a three tier structure for materializing the policy approved. The first thing is the Prime Minister’s Committee on Climate Change comprising of four to five ministers at the federal level ensuring inter-ministerial coordination headed by the Prime Minister. Under this committee, we have the Climate Change Council being notified with all the provinces and chief ministers on board to have inter-provincial coordination also headed by the Prime Minister.
It is a larger committee which has not been convened yet but will be summoned soon. The last tier was Climate Change Authority under the Policy has been established where the posts have been sanctioned and would be announced soon.
This will be a permanent technical arm of the ministry to resolve the issue of experts to deal with environmental issues,” Amin Aslam told the Caucus.
He added that Pakistan had no time left to be wasted in legislation rather has to spear head efforts for climate action.
“The key components for addressing climate change are mitigation, adaptation and conservation of natural resources,” the adviser said.
Chairperson Climate Caucus Senator Sherry Rehman in the outset said, “I am very appreciative of the parliament for taking climate change as an emergency where the country is facing its repercussions in every single season.”
“It causes unprecedented flash floods, droughts in our region with direct impact on agriculture and our ability to respond climate change. Around 5 million people have been affected by drought where Pakistan is the 3rd water scarce country in the world,” she said in her welcome remarks to the caucus.
“We have found a huge data and information deficit across the country which is typical in our country and hope that it will not persist. Climate Change is purely man made environmental deterioration resulting disasters. Each one of us is responsible for this and it is high time to alarm the masses particularly the youth to take lead in devising tools to overcome this calamity,” Rehman said.
Climate Change, she said had caused the country US$354 million losses in its various consequent disasters that were much more than those caused by War on Terror.
Leader of the House in the Senate, Senator Shibli Faraz said that climate change was not a local rather international issue where the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government from the day one in its government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa initiated environment conservation in the form of Billion Tree Tsunami.
“It is very heartrending to see that some political parties instead of encouraging us started questioning the veracity and numbers of the trees planted during the campaign,” he lamented.
“It is viable to start from smaller projects intended to address climate change impacts which will ultimately lead to bigger projects,” he said.
Country Representative, World Bank (WB) Patchamuthu Illangovan said there were 30 other water scarce economies in the world doing better than Pakistan. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report 2018 warns the world of unbearable impacts resulting severe disasters in case of no meaningful measures made to mitigate the risk, he added.
“There is no reliable ambient data available in Pakistan where our studies claim that poor quality resulting serious health complications can cause 3-4 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country. When Water Becomes a Hazard Report by WB also revealed 69 per cent potable water unfit for human consumption.
In these prevailing situations it becomes more significant that how Pakistan will cater its youth bulge and water leeching crops including Sugar, Wheat Rice and Cotton,” Illango said.
“Climate Change is all about less focus on planning and policy making more on implementation. There has been a huge behavioural shift in China where they taking holistic measures to mitigate climate change implications,” WB Country Rep said.
Environmental lawyer and activist Rafay Alam also delivered a comprehensive presentation to the climate change caucus and suggested the government to devise well knitted mechanism to spearhead head climate change with all provinces together.
Later on, members of the Caucus and civil society made interventions at the question and answer session which was took up by the panelists with their suggestions.
