This is apropos an editorial "Better late than never" carried by Business Recorder on March 6, encouraging "Green Pakistan Programme" covers only the positive action of planting large number of trees, but unfortunately, no mention is made to stop serious environmental pollution which is actually "killing" very large number of the very trees we will again spend billions to try and sustain them!
Those who frequently travel on Karachi's M A Jinnah Road must have noticed the pathetic condition of trees (which still just exist). Are these trees still "green" and breathing? There is no environmental benefit of these trees due to tons of polluted diesel engine exhausts, freely discharged by heavy traffic, literally from early morning to late at night.
We should be reducing environmental pollution and yet we are doing even worse by installing large coal-fired power plants, without any environmental control, in the heart of our agricultural base and these are adding colossal pollution to already very harmful pollution coming from Furnace Oil-based power plants, which will readily dwarf! kill the trees which we are planting with lot of fanfare and billions of rupees! One such polluting power plant, equivalent to many thousand diesel engines, will affect thousands of trees all around its discharge "shadow".
We must stop producing large-scale environmental pollution AND plant large number of trees. Unless we control carbon discharge (as well as very harmful sulphur and heavy metals' discharge), we will really suffer even in the short term with serious consequences of Climate Change!
The Paris Climate Agreement sets a course for substantial progress towards a low-carbon future and increased resilience to climate change in the years ahead. Even our delegate spoke against polluting power plants and yet we are merrily advancing in the darkness of ignorance and harming the environment all around us.
In terms of achieving reductions in fossil-fuelled energy use, the RE 100 global initiative, led by the Climate Group and Carbon Disclosure Project, announced that 53 multinational companies many of which are large users of energy, have committed to sourcing 100% of their electricity from renewable energy. Do we have any one of them here to save us?
The UK-based CDP, formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project and the Climate Group's report titled "Unlocking Ambition" identifies 90 cities, 87 companies and 23 regional governments that have committed to full decarbonisation. Unfortunately, again we have no one to help us!
Are we ready to wake-up from our slumber and do take action in the very near future? It is perhaps too much to presently expect any good since we are (wrongly!) so committed to imported coal-fired power plants which are both inefficient and highly polluting. We have a difficult period ahead ofus since we will keep on reducing our agricultural production (lowest yield level for all the main crops, even compared to our neighbour). We are causing serious ecological damages by poisonous discharge from large number of existing power plants and making this worse with new highly polluting power plants.
In this dismal scenario, there seems to be a ray of hope with the new generation taking surprisingly bold steps in showing the path to efficiency which will reduce energy demand, so hopefully lower pollution levels in the future.
Recent Engineering Conference in Karachi, arranged by ASHRAE Pakistan Chapter, had a day of engineering students' presentation and what a wonderful surprise!
The presentations covered thermo-electric generation which could replace expensive solar PV modules and be produced in Pakistan at much lower costs, turbulence box air-conditioner (to provide cool air in only the part of the room where it is needed) and which will replace the present energy-guzzler in the shape of "split units" (main cause of all our energy shortages) and architectural design of buildings to suit solar power generation. It should be noted that all of the above designs are practical and need immediate support at highest level, first at the University level and then quickly to get to commercial stage.
I would like to end on this hopeful note. Otherwise, it is all a story of pollution and corruption.
Comments
Comments are closed.