Federal Minister Climate
Change Minister, Senator Mushahidullah Khan, on Wednesday said that mainstreaming
of climate change into country’s national, provincial district socio-economic
development policies and strategies and heightened climate-smart investments in
infrastructure, businesses, and skills is must for protecting Pakistan from
fallouts of the climate change induced-disasters.
“There
is a pressing need for making climate change concern an integral part of
socio-economic development policies and action-plans, if we want to boost the
country’s climate resilience against exacerbating impacts of climate change,
particularly recurring droughts and floods, shifting and reducing rainfall
patterns, glacial melt, depleting river flows and sea-level rise,” he said in
response to a recent Climate Change Profile of Pakistan report published by the
Asian Development Bank.
Mushahidullah
Khan said the role of policymakers and planners is very much critical in this
regard and urged them to keep themselves abreast of shifting global, regional
and national climate change patterns and possible adaptation and mitigation
measures being adopted by the world to cope with the fallouts of the global
warming-induced climate change.
The
report,, which provides with a summary of climate change risks in Pakistan,
aims at policymakers, project developers, and development professionals, whose
work may be touched by climate change.
The
report says that over last five decades the annual average temperature in the
country has increased by roughly 0.5°C, with the number of heat wave days per
year increased nearly fivefold in the last three decades.
Besides,
annual precipitation has historically shown high variability, but has slightly
increased in the last 50 years. Sea level along the Karachi coast has
risen approximately 10 centimeters in the last century, devouring thousands of
hectares of coastal lands, according to the Asian Development Bank’s report.
The
report further warns that the annual mean temperature in Pakistan is expected
to rise by 3°C to 5°C for a central global emissions scenario, while higher
global emissions may yield a rise of 4°C to 6°C. Predicting the future scenario
of the sea-level rise, the report says the sea-level to go up by a further 60
centimeters by the end of the century and affect the low-lying coastal areas
south of Karachi toward Keti Bander and the Indus River delta.
Referring to the report findings, the climate change minister highlighted Climatic changes are potentially to bear various negative effects on the country’s farm productivity, water availability, increase coastal erosion and seawater incursion and frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
“Therefore, coping with climate risks
through adaptation and mitigation efforts - particularly in the agriculture,
water, energy and health sectors - is now inevitable for the country, which can
be achieved only through well-coordinated efforts and programmes by federal
ministries, provincial and district departments,” Mushahidullah Khan said.
The climate change minister
Mushahidullah Khan also said that role of non-governmental policy research and
development organisation in helping the government agencies for mainstreaming
climate change into the government’s policies and action-plans is of paramount
significance to protect lives and livelihoods of the people and make the public
infrastructure, agriculture, water, energy and health sectors
climate-resilient.
While identifying possible climate
change adaptation solutions and their adoption in the country, he said, “policy
at relevant government departments should play their roles and work in consultation
with non-governmental policy organisations, research institutions and
academia for promoting drought, heat and flood-resilient crop varieties among
farmers, modernising irrigation infrastructure network and adopting
water-saving technologies like drip and sprinkler technologies, integrated
watershed management, reforestation of catchment, flood-prone, coastal and
riverine areas and building more water reservoirs, diversification of energy
mix including investment in renewable and hydropower projects of varying sizes
and modernization of weather forecasting and warning systems.
“Being well positioned in terms of
capacity, know-how and research, the non-governmental organizations can offer
better and viable policy recommendations to federal, provincial and district
government organizations and help them roll out workable adaptation and
mitigation programmes,” Mushahidullah Khan argued.
