Pakistan is concerned over adverse impacts of climate change as the country contributes only 0.8 percent to total greenhouse gas emissions globally. Federal Minister for Climate Change Zahid Hamid said expressed these views on Tuesday while chairing an inception workshop on "Developing National REDD + Strategy and Developing National Forest Reference Emission Level (FREL), Forest Reference Levels (FRL), National Forest Monitoring System (NFMS) and Measuring, Reporting and Verification System (MRV)" held in Islamabad.
"The theme of the workshop is extremely important to Pakistan. The adverse impacts of climate change are of immense concern for Pakistan. We contribute only 0.8 percent to total global greenhouse gases emissions, ranking 135th in the world," said Zahid Hamid.
He further added Pakistan is ranked 7th amongst the countries most vulnerable to climate change. Pakistan today faces many major risks related to climate change, including glacier melting, variable monsoon, recurrent floods, rise in sea level, higher average temperature and higher frequency of droughts. Millions of people are affected and colossal damage is caused on recurring basis.
He also highlighted that these threats pose major survival concerns for Pakistan, particularly in relation to the security of country's water, food and energy. They have enormous adverse consequences for all socioeconomic sectors, including agriculture and livestock, water resources, marine and land ecosystems, forests and biodiversity, infrastructure and human health.
The minister said that to minimise the adverse effects of climate change in Pakistan, the government has prepared a framework for implementation of the Climate Change Policy for 15-year period. He informed the participants of workshop that the government has also prepared a National Forest Policy that has been approved by the Council of Common Interests and will be implemented through the provinces. The policy also provides for mainstreaming REDD + as a tool to curb deforestation and enhance forest cover and forest carton stocks implementing a mass forestation programme of largely indigenous species over the country.
He also told the audience that the REDD + development process in Pakistan started in 2010 and Pakistan became member of UN-REDD+ as partner country in 2011. From 2011 Ministry of Climate Change has conducted a series of capacity building workshops for provincial forest departments' professionals and other stakeholders from academia and civil organisations.
He further added that Pakistan signed a REDD + Readiness Grant from FCPF during 2015 worth US $3.8 million for implementation of REDD+ Readiness activities in Pakistan. The Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC) through its Office of the Inspector General of Forests (OIGF) is implementing the REDD+ Readiness Preparation Project with the financial support of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) of the World Bank.
The project is aimed at making necessary technical, institutional and legal preparations needed for formally implementing the REDD+ programmes in Pakistan. Major objectives of project are to develop the National REDD+ strategy and its implementation framework, management and institutional arrangements for REDD+ implementation, development of baselines (forests reference emission levels/ reference levels), development of the national forest monitoring system including measurement, reporting and verification systems, development of social and environmental safeguards and capacity building outreach and awareness raising.
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