Climate Change Ministry fetches record funding

Islamabad: Suggesting climate change is no more ignored in Pakistan, the federal government’s funding for the ministry tasked with dealing with global warming and everything affected by the growing greenhouse gas levels in the country has hit a record high.

The climate change ministry, whose Public Sector Development Programme allocations in the last budget (2018-19) had totaled around Rs800 million, will get Rs7.579 billion in the next fiscal (2019-20), especially when the government has slashed allocations for most federal ministries due to the financial squeeze.

New projects get the lion’s share in funding. According to the budget documents, Rs7.515 billion is allocated for the 10 Billion Tsunami Programme Phase-1 Upscaling of Green Pakistan Programme (Revised) and Rs15 million for the establishment of the Climate Change Reporting Unit at the ministry and Rs7.5 billion allocated for Ten Billion Tsunami Programme Phase-1 up-scaling of Green Pakistan Programme (Revised).

As for the ongoing initiatives, Rs25 million will go to the sustainable land management project to combat desertification of Pakistan SLMP-II and Rs20 million to the Climate Resilient Urban Human Settlements Unit, while Rs16 million will be spent by the Pakistan WASH Strategic Planning and Coordination Cell and Rs3.2 million on the establishment of the Geomatic Centre for Climate Change.