Transport consumes 30pc of energy in Islamabad

Islamabad : The experts at a panel discussion have said there was need of a stakeholder collaboration and engagement of the government and civil society to come up with sustainable transport systems across the country to cope with spiking up risk of smog and air pollution.

This was stated by the experts at a panel discussion on “Sustainable urban transportation for smart cities in the developing countries” at 25th Sustainable Development Conference (SDC) of Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) jointly held alongside UNESCAP’s 6th South and Southwest Asia High-level Political Forum and Policy Dialogue on SDGs here Tuesday. Dr Ejaz Ahmed, senior programme fellow, Institute of Urbanism (IoU) moderated the session.

Ayesha Majid, IoU, presented a case study from Islamabad conducted by the institute to gauge the urban mobility and transport landscape of the capital.

Dr Axel Harneit-Sievers, director, Heinrich Boll Stiftung (HBS), Asia Global Dialogue Office, Hong Kong as chair in the session said that in Pakistan there is a difficultly in switching to gas-based cars from oil-based to reduce emissions whereas it can explore electric vehicles as a solution. Speaking at another session, Ambassador Kionka said the EU is already leading global contribution for climate finance despite its 9 per cent share in global GHGs emissions.