Islamabad : Rumina Khursheed, former Parliamentary Secretary on Climate Change in PMLN government, has said that Climate Rights are part of fundamental human rights and must move on from checking Climate Change to declaring Climate Emergency.
Ms. Rumina was addressing the participants of a “Pre-COP26 Consultation with Diplomats” organised here by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).
Ms. Rumina said that it is a national as well as global issue at the same time. It involves delivering money and using it in developing countries. She observed that Climate Change impacts everybody including children yet to be born. She stressed that technology needs to be transferred to developing countries.
The opposition MNA said that political will is there and hoped and prayed that Pakistan will soon come out of vulnerability by adopting proper policy and strategy instead of indulging in sloganeering. She said there must be reports as to what we have concretely achieved instead of just claiming implanting trees without follow-up action.
Senator Faisal Javed from TIP said that Pakistan is facing major problems in adaptation and mitigating effects of Climate Change. He said we have a water storage capacity of only one month while India has it 6. 4 months minimum. He said we do not have enough dams and we waste $22 billion worth of water every year. He said that we all are running short of water and it should be a matter of concern for all.
Referring to the government commitment, he said that Pakistan was the first country in the world to restore 350,000 hectares of land to forests while it restored over 600,000 hectares of land as part of the Bonn Challenge. He said that Pakistan met the UN climate goals a decade before the global deadline though still a lot needs to be done.
German Ambassador Bernhard Schlagheck speaking on the occasion said that the current decade is a decisive decade on climate action which is most crucial and critical right now. He observed that as the world slowly recovers from COVID-19, the clock for the climate is ticking and we must achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 to prevent the adverse effects of Climate Change and a robust reduction is required during this decade.
Daniel Froats from US Embassy in Pakistan said that the US perspective in Glasgow would be to revert to 2015 targets. He said that the US wants to deepen its climate partnership with countries like Pakistan and other major countries such as China as the global emergency is to be tackled with global effort. As the US re-join the Paris commitment, the US administration will be committing to a 50-52% reduction in the GHG emission by 2050, he said.
Luke Myers from Canadian High Commission said that 2021 is a critical year and announced a significant increase in controlling 40 per cent emissions by 2030. He said Ottawa sees 2021 as a critical year for emission reduction and we also recognize the adaptation problems of the developing countries. He said Canada through various measures brought down its emissions to 300 metric tons that is 40% of its emission and it’s committed to net-zero emission till 2030.
Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri, Executive Director, SDPI, said that Pakistan will be negotiating technology transfer and alternative means and resources for energy transition, for it needs to roll back the coal power plants, in order to go for net zero-emission, in the COP26.