Sharmila asks federal govt to ensure adaptation measures to tackle climate change

KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) MPA Sharmila Farooqui on Saturday urged the federal government, including Federal Climate Change Ministry and National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), to come up with concrete adaptation measures to tackle climate change that is posing threat to lives of people in major cities, including Karachi, and other parts of Pakistan in shape of warmer weather, cold, heavy rains, and floods.

"There is need to use scarce water resources more efficiently, adapting building codes to future climate conditions and extreme weather events, building flood defences, raising the levels of dykes, developing drought-tolerant crops, planting better tree species everywhere, raising forests," she said in a statement.

Sharmila said that Pakistan has been ranked globally in the top ten countries most affected by climate change in the past 20 years owing to its geographical location.

It has lost 0.53 percent per unit GDP, suffered economic losses worth US$ 3792.52 million and witnessed 152 extreme weather events from 1999 to 2018.

ADB analysis shows that the socioeconomic costs of environmental degradation are considerable with climate adaptation needs ranging between $7 billion and $14 billion per year.

She said: "The rapidly emerging climatic change is one of the biggest threats to the sustainability of life in arid areas and major cities of Pakistan. The phenomenon of global warming is a major cause of environmental degradation. The enhanced discharge of greenhouse gas emissions in our outer atmosphere due to fossil fuel combustion leads to a rise in Earth's average temperature besides polluting the air."

Sharmila said that in Pakistan, climate change affects human life as well as the economy by causing disruption in climatic processes resultantly leading to floods, famines, droughts and cyclones among other natural disasters.

In Pakistan, climatic changes are expected to have wide-ranging impacts, such as: reduced agricultural productivity, increased variability of water availability, increased coastal erosion and sea water incursion, and increased frequency of extreme climatic events.

Sharmila said that the federal government being cognizant of the situation is not taking requried measures at policy, management and operational levels to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change in the country, therefore, it is the need of the hour to make huge investment to tackle climate change effects in Karachi, Lahore and other parts of the country.

"There is no clue to Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme as very low number of trees have yet been planted in the country. The federal government needs to plant promised number of trees to reduce the warming," she added.

She said there is also need to save agriculture sector by taking emergency-based steps as the agriculture is the backbone of the economy, which has also been adversely affected by climate change. "Climate change can disrupt food availability, reduce access to food, and affect food quality.

Projected increases in temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, changes in extreme weather events, and reductions in water availability may all result in reduced agricultural productivity," she feard.

"Natural hazard challenges like floods, droughts, and cyclones, which have been growing in intensity and frequency with the passage of time. The government federal needs to take solid measures to effectively tackle climate change challenges, such as improving technological responses by setting in place early warning systems and information systems to enhance disaster preparedness climate change resilience, and by improving forest management and biodiversity conservation," Sharmila concluded.