Seminar on climate advocacy held at NUML

Islamabad : The climate awareness among university youth would help develop vibrant corps of sensitised citizens, said Munir Ahmed, environmentalist and climate advocacy expert, Devcom-Pakistan Director at a seminar organised by the National University of Modern Languages (NUML) on Friday.

He said according to a study conducted by the Devcom-Pakistan recently 95.4 per cent residents of Islamabad have seen radical changes in the city over a period of three decades. The changes included the loss of vegetation and green belts, shortage of water, increase in environment unfriendly housing units, increase in traffic on the roads that have created a mess and leaving no space in the parking lots, increase air pollution that has led to several diseases including breathing, inhaling and eye infections.

The Director Devcom said the increase in temperature has changed the life style of the residents. The use of electric home appliances and room-cooling machines has immensely enhanced the emission of the Greenhouse Gases while on the other hand the loss of green cover has enhanced the impact of the increased local temperature.

Referring to the study, he said the rise of the diseases in the city of Islamabad is also one of the worse effects of the climate change. The shortage of public medical hospitals has multiplied the miseries of the locals. The unavailability of clean drinking water has further deteriorated the health of the poor and marginalised living in the suburbs of the federal capital.

The residents said that now the frequency of their illness has increased to 4-5 times over the period of two decades. While the availability of clean drinking water has decreased up to three-time less than what they had been getting 10-20 years back.