ISLAMABAD: New Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman took charge of the Climate Change Ministry on Wednesday.

Speaking on the occasion, she said, “Climate Change is a very important and serious issue, particularly in developing countries such as Pakistan. As much as 80 percent of the urban population lack access to clean drinking water. Pakistani cities rank highly on the air pollution score in the world and one in ten deaths amongst children under five are caused by air pollution and 128,000 people die from airborne particulate matter yearly in Pakistan. What we have seen so far are headless climate change ministries that fail to blip on the federal government’s own policy radar. We need to rethink our policies and coordinate priorities quickly”.

She continued, “First and foremost, a policy roadmap beyond planting trees is needed. At the same time public awareness and community buy-in is crucial if we are to combat climate change as a nation. We need the ministries’ priorities and policies to be up and running to focus on all key challenges, particularly the terrible damage caused by waste and pollution of all resources; behaviour change needs messaging, in language that should also be easily accessible by the common citizen.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022