Speakers at a seminar here on Monday warned that highly populated South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (Saarc) region is vulnerable to the extreme hydro meteorological disasters like flash floods, monsoon flooding, tropical cyclones and storm surges.
They were addressing the Saarc workshop on "Science and Technology issues on Climate Change" arranged jointly by Ministry of Science and Technology and Pakistan meteorological Department (MoST & PMD) at Comstech.
While addressing, the Federal Minister for Science and Technology Mir Changez Khan Jamali said 2010-floods in Pakistan was the recent most example in which Pakistan received exceptionally heavy monsoon rains and about 2,000 lives were lost besides damages to property and infrastructure. Vulnerability to various natural hydro-meteorological disasters have increased and re-shaped the boundaries for the areas affected, he mentioned.
He further said that important climate change threats to South Asia included considerable increase in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, and also projected recession of Hindu Kush, Karakoram Himalayan glaciers, threatening weather inflows into Indus River System.
While addressing, Saarc (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) Director Hassan Wazir said climate change was invariably harming the region by social, environmental and economic impacts. All these treats, he said, might lead to major national security concerns for countries in Saarc region in terms of its water security, food security and energy security.
He was of the view that globally the climate change at present was a priority agenda. The only option available for dealing with adverse impacts of climate change is adaptation and S&T inventions wherever it is possible. Earlier giving welcoming address, PMD Director General Arif Mehmood said S&T and climate change effects were vast fields, which addressed number of issues and required comprehensive discussions and deliberations.
"We all are agreed that climate change may be one of the greatest threats facing our planet", he said, adding recent years show increasing temperatures in various regions and frequency of extreme weather events. While giving keynote address, Advisor on Met and Climate Affairs, Dr Qamar-uz-Zaman said the workshop would explore climate change impacts on fast growing S&T fields and would recommend steps to redress or minimise these effects so that S&T could better serve the humanity.
He said vulnerability to various natural hydro-meteorological disasters had increased and re-shaped the boundaries for the areas to be affected. Qamar-uz-Zaman said the workshop would serve as forum to address progress and future plans for climate research to prepare scientific synthesis and assessments on key climate change issues.
He was of the view that deliberations during this workshop would be helpful in evaluating the current state of observations, modelling or other research and its appropriateness for use in decision making at different scales.