The government has missed almost all sustainable and Millennium Development Goals to tackle exacerbating situation of environment and climate change in the country. The Economic Survey 2014-15 released on Thursday disclosed that the country is still far from meeting its intended targets of environment and climate change in different sectors that are directly impacting on the lives of people. This includes provision of clean drinking water, solid waste management, sanitation and forests.
The survey says there is also a lack of related data which has made the matters worse for the country. All the programs and plans of the previous years have been based on outdated data and incomplete information. The country suffered economic losses of more than $15 billion during floods of 2010, to 2012. More than 20 million people were affected and roughly 300,000 were displaced. The country's 5,000 glaciers are in retreat due to climate change, says the survey.
The survey says that if timely measures are not taken to tackle adverse impacts of the climate change, the following key environmental indicators are likely to emerge:
1. Population to grow from 188.02 million in 2014 to 234.4 million by 2025, making cities more congested and polluted.
2. Number of vehicles on roads to increase from 13.88 million in 2014-15(July-March) to 35 million further deteriorating air qualities in cities.
3. As the natural gas deposits are getting exhausted, use of low cost fuel like coal, refuse derived fuel, tyre derived fuel etc. will be opted. Burning of low grade fuels could worsen the air quality.
4. Solid waste generation in the country is expected to enhance from 20 million tons/year to 27 million tons/year adding more heaps of garbage and open dumping sites. Use of pesticides and industrial chemicals will increase manifolds adding more toxicity to water and soil.
5. Water pollution load will increase proportionally with rise in population, which could add 25 percent more pollution to the water bodies.
According to Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), the majority of the population in the country is exposed to the hazards of drinking unsafe and polluted water from both surface and ground water sources, the survey says.
About 2 million wet tons of human excreta are annually produced in the urban sector of which around 50 percent pollute water bodies. "The National Conservation Strategy states that almost 40 percent of all disease related deaths are connected to water borne diseases," the Survey states.
The survey says that sanitation and hygiene situation in the country remains at a crises point as just 48 percent of the population has access to improved sanitation and more than 40 million people continue to defecate in the open. "Only 24 percent households of Pakistan have access to underground and covered drains. 42 percent have access to open drains and 33 percent live with no system," it says.
The rural households spend around 20 percent of their monthly income on medical costs, largely due to sanitation and water-borne diseases. The survey says that under Millennium Development Goals Pakistan had committed to increase forest cover to 6 percent by the year 2015, which could not be achieved mainly due to financial constraints of federal and provincial governments. "Slow Overseas Development Assistance from bilateral or multilateral sources impedes government policies and plans to bring additional lands under tree cover," it says.
Developing countries need uninterrupted flow of pledged financial resources from developed countries to adapt to a changing global climate and reduce carbon emission to boost forest growth. About the solid waste management, the survey says that only 30 percent of solid waste quantities generated are generally collected. Increase in the solid waste is due to increase in urban population, industrialisation and changing consumption pattern.
In most cities, poor collection and transportation of municipal solid waste is reported and the waste which is collected has a high percentage of organic matter that can be recovered via composting and recycling. "Solid waste management position in rural areas is more devastating where mostly open dumping is carried out. Hence, due to poor solid waste management large number of communicable diseases and unhygienic environment are being created," the Survey says.