Pakistan to work with regional countries on climate change

Islamabad :Pakistan has pledged to jointly work with all eight Hindu Kush Himalayan countries to protect lives and livelihoods from fallouts of climate change.

Addressing a session of the Conference of Parties in Bonn, Germany, Minister for Climate Change Mushahidullah Khan said transboundary collaboration among countries in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region to cope with climate risks had become inevitable.

He said lives and livelihoods of nearly 210 million people living in the mountain areas of the Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan were at stake from various common climate change-caused disasters, particularly floods, glacial melt, shifting summer and winter weather patterns. 

The minister said Pakistan had extreme vulnerability to climate change due to its geographic, demographic and diverse climatic conditions. "The climate-related threats to water energy and food security due to inherent arid climate that is coupled with the high degree of reliance on water from glacial snow's melting," he said.

The minister added that the impacts of climate change were being felt through increasing intensity and frequency of extreme climatic disastrous events, which were increasingly adversely affecting many sectors.

He said the government of Pakistan believes that the approach brought in by the National Determined Contribution Partnership offered a great opportunity to achieve ambitious 2030 agenda for sustainable development though building and strengthening collaboration with regional and international institutions.

"The National Determined contributions partnership offers a great opportunity to Pakistan for devising new approaches to meet the commitments reflected in its INDC, though integrated and inclusive manner," he said.

The minister said Pakistan would look forward to achieving long-term and climate-neutral development goals through enhanced action along with global community. "We believe that the principal of common but differentiated responsibilities must be followed and the spirit of Paris Agreement should remain pivotal so that our efforts remain convergent to achieve more resilient future for our generation," he said. The participants supported Pakistan’s call for jointly working against the common climate risks to various socioeconomic sectors, particularly water, food and energy sectors.