Impacts of climate change: WWF-Pakistan, K-Electric organize two-day workshop

Ensuring availability of relevant scientific data on the major sources of carbon and other Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and improve the existing knowledge on the drivers and impacts of climate change, experts emphasized on the need to take serious efforts in city. It was also committed by the representatives of relevant government departments and other organizations to extend all possible support in registering Karachi to the One Planet City Challenge (OPCC) - a global initiative of WWF that recognizes and rewards cities that are busy making themselves climate friendly. The two-day workshop was organised by the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan) in collaboration with K-Electric at a local hotel in Karachi on Friday.
Speaking on the occasion, Pamela Cabacungan, Project Officer - Mitigation, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability Southeast Asia Secretariat (SEAS), the lead trainer of the workshop said that Pakistan ranks seven in the most affected countries by climate change in last two decades as reported in the Global Climate Risk Index of 2017. She also shared that critical climate change impacts in country include reduction in freshwater availability, increase in social inequalities that could lead to instability, displacement of people and conflicts on use of local resources. She said that all relevant stakeholders including key government departments should come forward and develop a common understanding in establishing a climate change agenda. The various issues city is experiencing right now could worsen in immediate future due to climate change. 'Development and implementation of effective action plan is the need of hour for Karachi', she added.
Zehra Mehdi, Deputy Director Sustainability and CSR at K-Electric said that this is an important step towards shifting Karachi to a renewable energy platform. She also informed that K-Electric is taking serious steps towards reducing carbon footprint of the company. K-Electric is striving to bring all installations to zero emissions and takes all possible measures for energy conservation. She reiterated that KE is at the forefront of nominating Karachi for OPCC and will continue to be a driving force for it. She was of the view that the event is the first step of to promote concept of Karachi as sustainable and green city. 'It would require a collective effort on part of all stakeholders to make Karachi a green city of the world, she added. -PR