Formation of federal climate change ministry hailed

Karachi
Dr Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, a climate change expert and the lead author of Pakistan’s first National Climate Change Policy, has welcomed the government’s decision to upgrade its climate change division by giving it the status of a federal ministry.
On January 8, the federal government issued a notification to upgrade its climate change division to the status of a federal ministry and the appointed Mushahid Ullah as its federal minister.
Talking to The News on Tuesday, Dr Chaudhry while hailing this move, said, “This shows that the federal government has realised that climate change is one of the major threats to the country’s development. The rest of the world has now beginning to consider climate change a bigger threat than terrorism.”
However, Dr Chaudhry said there would be a need to enhance the capacity of this newly-formed ministry of climate change so that it is equipped for facing the related challenges and creating opportunities for climate financing.
“Both of these tasks will require the ministry of climate change to coordinate, sensitise and assist other sectoral ministries, such as the ministries of water and power, and, agriculture to develop marketable and feasible projects which can attract international climate financing, especially from the Green Climate Fund.
Elaborating on the Green Climate Fund, Dr Chaudhry said it was expected to be the major international development fund, where developed countries will provide monetary help to developing countries for adapting to and mitigating the impact of change.
He said climate change also threatened heritage and civilisation. Citing an example, he said, unusual patterns of rain across Sindh in 2010, essentially caused by climate change, coupled with man-made disasters had adversely affected Makli, one of the world’s largest necropolis, situated in Thatta district.
“As a result of changes in weather, high humidity levels, which had previously been confined to the port city of Karachi, were recorded throughout Sindh,” according to Zafar Junejo, an independent consultant and a former chief executive officer of Thardeep Rural Development Programme, a not-for-profit non- governmental organisation.
“The rainfall was unusual to say the least... it was continuous and with raindrops that were thrice the size of those recorded in previous years,” he told The News. “Add to that, the inappropriate interventions made at the site, including incidents where certain tombs served as makeshift toilets.”
He said in recent years, Makli had witnessed the worst kind of pollution.
“Many of the tombs were already damaged and their condition was not helped by the antics of several NGOs. These particular organisations not only started plying their vehicles at the necropolis, they even organised cricket matches there.”
He said some of them were even careless enough to collect artefacts, including tiles from ancient graves, from the necropolis and present them as gifts to donors.