Environment Minister Malik Amin Aslam said the Higher Education Commission (HEC) should include environment and global changes as a subject for MS and Ph.D., studies. He was addressing the concluding session of a three-day national workshop on "global changes - challenges, impacts and opportunities" organised by the Pakistan Academy of Sciences here on Saturday. The minister said world changing with a fast pace and alarming challenges are ahead, which require professional manpower to meet them.
He said the HEC should provide opportunities to professionals in advance study in the field of environment and climatic changes.
Aslam said realising the importance of environmental challenges, the prime minister has recently established a committee on climate change and the Global Change Impact Studies Centre led by Dr Ashfaq Ahmed.
This committee has started addressing various matters related to climatic changes in the country and its impact on water, agriculture and other socio-economic sectors.
Special advisor to the prime minister, Dr Ashfaq Hassan said that world is facing three major global challenges that are seriously affecting the environmental and socio-economic conditions across the globe.
These are: global climate change, technological change and global economic changes particularly after full implementation of the WTO regime.
He said greenhouse gas emission is significantly affecting the global environment.
Global warming is also seen as a clear danger in the future to global atmosphere and to the wellbeing of billions of people, Dr Ashfaq said.
Shrinking glaciers, rising sea levels, extraordinary heat waves, enormous forest fires and massive floods are already providing evidence to the incidence of global warming, he added.