Mushahidullah calls for collective efforts to deal with climate change

Islamabad: Federal Minister for Climate Change Mushahidullah Khan Monday said Pakistan ranked seventh position among the top 10 countries of the world facing the worst impacts of climate change.

He said this while speaking as chief guest at the formal launch of three-year Climate Advocacy and Coordination for Resilient Action (CACRA) program by the Pakistan Red Crescent Society at a local hotel, says a press release.

The program has been launched in collaboration with the German Red Cross and financial support of BMZ (Bundesministerium Für Wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit) German Government’s Federal Ministry for Economic Development Cooperation.

Representatives from government and non-government organizations, movement partners, foreign embassies and government officials and PRCS program managers and officers attended the function.

“Climate change is the result of irresponsible behavior of heavily industrialized nations which today have been blaming us for the phenomenon and lecturing us on taking emergency measures in this regard,” he said.

Mushahidullah said the impacts of this human-induced change were showing up in shape of heat wave, flooding, rising sea level, reduced crop yield, decreased water availability, increase in number of people exposed to vector-borne and water-borne diseases.

He said the approval of Climate Change Impact 2017 was a matter of huge honor for Pakistan that will contribute towards minimizing the impact of climate change.

He said climate change was not a short-duration phenomenon throwing us an enormous challenge to take collective serious, synchronized and coordinated efforts to be dealt with.

“We will have to pay our unreserved attention to afforestation and overcome the problem of overpopulation to minimize the impact of this phenomenon,” the minister said.

Chairman PRCS Dr. Saeed Elahi said climate change was a universal phenomenon that had impacted all countries in one way or the other.

“Pakistan is no exception. From blinding smog to abrupt rise in temperature and from floods to famines all are devastating fallouts of climate change.

Besides these phenomena, there have been ever-increasing number of natural disasters occurring in the country from the Glacial Lakes Outburst Flooding (GLOF) in the north of the country resulting in flash floods and heat wave in the Punjab and Sindh during summers.

These factors are putting a significant impact on our economic activities. It will influence many other population trends in migrations and economic survival,” Dr Saeed said.

He expressed the hope that ensuing actions like formation of the Pakistan Climate Change Council and adaptation and mitigation policies, national level programs and projects will help us meet the challenges caused by climate change in our country.

Dr Saeed said the PRCS had joined the cause with the collaboration of its partner national society of Germany and adopting the community-based approach.

“Our commitment to climate change starts with the launch of CACRA which gives our team an opportunity to ascertain our unified commitment for working on climate change adaptation,” he said.

Secretary General PRCS Ghulam Muhammad Awan also spoke on the occasion and explained the contours of the three-year project.

Chairman PRCS AJK branch Dr. Sardar Mehmood Ahmed, Chairperson PRCS Sindh branch Shehnaz Hamid, Chairman FATA branch Fareed Khan Wazir, Chairman PRCS KP branch Gen (R) Hamid Khan, Member Managing Board Dr. Jamal Nasir and others spoke on the occasion.