Pakistan is required to take adaptation and mitigation measures to counter climate change, which poses a serious threat of food security and economic instability. This was the gist of a daylong seminar on climate change adoption, which was jointly organised by the Foreign Affairs Trade and Development, Canada, and the Aga Khan Foundation, here on Thursday.
The speakers emphasised on taking effective adaptation and mitigation measures to avert the effects of climate change. They said that climate change would have a serious impact on the agriculture productivity, which would result in food insecurity. They further said that the reduction in agriculture productivity due to considerable change in temperature during the last decades was going to hit the economic growth.
Speaking at the seminar, former Director General, Metrology, Dr Qamar Zaman, said that Pakistan was eligible for Green Climate Fund (GCF). "The GCF will support projects, programmes, policies and other activities in developing countries," he added. He said that Pakistan needed to develop policies and manage the system effectively. He further said that climate change was considered to be one of the biggest development challenges, as the world was facing food insecurity due to water scarcity with depletion of natural resources. He emphasised on focusing climate change adaptation and mitigation, especially in the mountainous region of Northern Pakistan inhabited by most vulnerable to climate change.
He shed light on the impact of rising temperatures and global warming on the glaciers of Pakistan and its subsequent affect on the Indus water system as well as threat to food security in the country. He mentioned that the rise of temperatures in the Northern Areas, which was house to a number of glaciers in, was mainly due to global warming and more importantly due to the direct carbon deposits on the glaciers. "The black carbon is resulting from the transboundary pollutants coming from the neighbouring country which has coal-based industries," he added.
Dr Qamar also highlighted that owing to financial constraints, Pakistan alone could not afford the needed finance for adaptation to climate change, therefore, the world community should support Pakistan from the proposed Climate Change Fund. Nusrat Nasab, Executive Officer, Focus Humanitarian Assistance (FOCUS), Pakistan, said that Pakistan was among the top ten vulnerable countries exposed to disasters due to lack of collective efforts across the board. She also highlighted Climate Smart Solutions in securing sustainable development for future generation by reducing poverty and strengthening hazard resilience led by community initiatives.
She called upon all the stakeholders to act now as recurrence of disasters was alarming due to incandescence of heat waves, melting glaciers, floods, droughts and the intensity of windstorm. She said that the AKDN's ongoing work to strengthen community resilience in a variety of sectors including community-based disaster risk management, community-managed hydro-electric power, energy-efficient household products and millions of trees planted in the Northern Pakistan were best examples of strengthening collaborations in public-private partnership in climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Sayed Amjad Hussain, a climate change expert, emphasised the need of tapping global resources and said that Pakistan was eligible to benefit from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and National Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) to access the international resources for mitigating climate change impacts and resources for interventions in hydropower and Green Sector for Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral.
Tariq Mehamood, senior journalist, said that Pakistani media had played a main role in highlighting national disasters and for future, climate change stakeholders needed to approach media for depicting impact of climate change in the remote areas. However, the seminar emphasised on development projects and policies, as the country could benefit considerably in term of assistance by following clean development mechanism (CDM) and nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMA) in development as well as other projects.
The seminar deliberated on the theme of reducing climate change with special reference to climatic changes impact on Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral. The discussion also focused on climate change threats and opportunities in northern areas n and way forward.
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