ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday expressed his concerns over Pakistan being amongst the countries which are at a great risk due to climate change. Pakistan itself contributes less than one percent in carbon emission but due to the melting of the glaciers will become the center of catastrophe
According to Radio Pakistan the event was organized by the Ministry of Climate Change in light of World Environment day.
The premiere said that due to the melting of glaciers, Pakistan is more vulnerable to climate change than countries like Bangladesh. He also said that awareness regarding climate change has been spreading slowly; “For the first time in the United States, President Joe Biden’s administration is focusing on climate change”.
“Thankfully awareness has increased in the past ten years”.
Prime minister Khan emphasized that we need to protect our future generations from the impact of climate change, in order to protect the environment. Some measures would include planting tree, making national parks.
He said that we need to learn from countries like China who have developed green cities and “utilise all available resources to increase the number of trees in the country”.
The number of mangroves in the country have increased despite the deforestation seen in the last twenty years. Mangrove forests potentially store 76.4 million tones of Carbon diOxide equivalent (CO2e).
The world is now realizing the ruthless wastage of natural resources is resulting in disastrous consequences for mankind.
The PM asserted that the concept of climate change should be taught to children at school so that “our entire country is focused on ensuring a better future for the coming generations”.
The world has exploited nature with greed and people are slowly realizing this according the Imran Khan, “there were always going to be consequences”.
The PM said that Pakistan is to take the lead in spreading awareness regarding climate change.
“People only started caring about global warming in the past 20 years”
“Only in the past three to four years, some developed countries did not take it seriously.”
Pakistan has 3-5 percent of the total blue carbon of the world which is an unvalued commodity valued for the first time in any country. Further research needs to be done on blue carbon according to the PM.
The PM also addressed the California wildfires and Australian fires and how they have shook the international community. People like Bill Gates have also come forth to mitigate challenges induced by climate change before the situation gets out of hand.
He has also launched Pakistan’s first green Eurobond by the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), earlier this week. This was initiated to fulfil the financial needs for manufacturing the Diamer-Bhasha dam and Mohmand dam.
He said that the biggest problem Pakistan faces is implementation “In my government I am also seeing some things that lag behind when it comes to implementation”.
Preservation of natural resources was taught to mankind by the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), which we need to practice today.
