‘Cutting trees like cutting throats of posterity’

Senator Mushahid Ullha, Minister for Environment, in a recent TV programme beautifully described the horror of cutting trees as like cutting the throats of our posterity. If cutting of the trees and deforestation continue unabatedly in this country the degeneration of the country’s environment will touch the threshold making it difficult even to breathe — pushing our future generations at a greater risk of not leading a healthy life. The polluted air will cause serious public health issues of large scale if the civil society did not rise to the occasion to force the public representatives to pay due attention to stem the looming dangers of climate change. Greenhouse gas emission undermines the enabling environment and the habitat of all the living species. Life will not be worth living if the eco-system crumbles under the burden of toxic gases. The impact of the man-made disaster must be nullified by him, now. He has the capability to do so if backed by the will power. He has no other option but to stand up to the challenge and make resolution to produce and use clean energy to keep the normal life going on sustainable basis. This achievement by him will be deemed climate change as the best form of blessing in disguise.
Global warming, if not checked, will sway all over the globe with increased intensity and without exception. So, it is the acute conundrum of grotesque magnitude and warrants collective efforts to save the future generations from being devoured by catastrophe that is bound to hit in the face of our tardiness. It is the prime responsibility of the today’s generation of all hues to take up the challenge and figure out a coherent strategy and a roadmap destined not to further degenerate the habitat — strive for improving the living conditions on sustainable basis. There is no room for complacency because climate change has already started hitting the balance in the forms of floods, droughts, cyclones, tornadoes and heat waves.
The main culprits of the global pollution are the USA, European Unions and the other industrialised nations of the world those recklessly burnt fossil fuel to run their industrial units at accelerated pace in a bid to solve their chronic economic problems and to improve the quality of life of their citizens. This race triggered by industrial revolution continued with the emergence of big new consumers like China, India and in the Far-East. The highly competitive international market nudged them to compete through mass production while heavily depending on fossil fuel and the emission of corbondioxide as a consequence has taken its toll.
The big perpetrators are now realizing the grave dangers for their own compelling reasons. They are actively considering of launching a vigorous campaign to address the problem that has the potential to darken the future of our next generations. US President Obama has quite recently vowed to reduce the carbondioxcide emission in his country by 32% from 2005 levels by 2030. The US government intends to achieve this ambitious target through increase of massive generation and use of clean energy through renewable sources of energy. French president has also taken upon himself this international obligation and reaching out to the world capitals to make the real difference.
These are not the times to engage in blame game of as who is bigger polluter or otherwise because the effects of climate change will be borne indiscriminately across the world regardless of the status of a nation in the comity of the nations. However, the rich countries should open their hearts and wallets for a cause that is worth pursuing because they cannot shy away the international obligation. The rich countries owe much to do in this direction. The declaration of Copenhagen Accord, December 2009, has spelled out the dangers with precision those warrant immediate holistic approach: “Due to climate change, monsoons are threatened, agriculture productivity is on the wane, extreme weather pattern are on the rise, the Himalayan glaciers are melting, thereby imperiling our water security, our coastlines are eroding, and our forests and wild life are endangered. And that is not all. Climate change endangers our health and well-being of our children.”
Pakistan is at number three among the ten countries those will be worst hit due to the climate change. The people of this country have been facing the dangerous aftermaths of the global warming because the floods have become regular feature causing havoc throughout the country. We have failed to achieve our GDP targets mainly due to the floods as crops are damaged, houses washed away, infrastructure damaged and hundreds of thousands people have to move out to save their lives and livestock. The government has to spend billions of rupees for the rehabilitation of the flood victims, repair roads and bridges and resumption of services like electricity, communication, education, health and other essential services. The affected people are pushed back from the poverty to destitution with uncertain future as the floods may uproot them during the next rainy season. The vicious circle of poverty becomes their fate and the government endeavors to extricate them out of poverty fail miserably.
The major cause of worry is that the government of Pakistan is not serious to give priority to this challenge because it does not comprehend the gravity of the dangers. It’s planning and development strategy is mired in lack of vision and such issues do not figure out in their priority. The leadership needs to pay matching attention and resources to evolve short term, medium term and long term strategy backed by political will to stem the tide of global warming. Without such approach, Pakistan’s political and economic problems will multiply with dangerous social and political implications. Pakistan needs to focus on to save country’s fertile land from becoming the victim of climate change. The World Bank report of 2006 should have alarmed the mandarins but to no avail yet because no serious effort is underway to tackle the issue. The report observed, ‘Pakistan’s economic environmental degradation is equivalent to 6% of the GDP’. This colossal cost is not affordable. But, no one is listening in the corridor of powers. They are seemingly bogged down in the survival strategy to complete their tenure. How pitiable and trivial indeed?
The newly established Ministry of Environment should contemplate and formulate guidelines to be followed by all the government’s entities in letter and spirit. The induction of new experts in the Ministry should justify their existence by launching awareness campaign to begin with. It should be followed by extensive consultations with the provincial governments because this domain has been devolved to the federating units after the 18th Amendment.
The federal ministry however cannot absolve itself from the responsibility of striving for the improvement of the environment. It should engage the provincial governments to address the challenge with national focus. The federal minister should also convince its party leadership to enact necessary legislations to facilitate in achieving the objectives of the policy formulated in 2012. His dedicated efforts will yield much awaited results to control the pace of environmental degradation. It is a gigantic task but worth pursuing for our survival.
Planning and Development Division, minister of finance and the Ministry of Water and Power should huddle together in pursuance of the prime minster’s anticipated directive to build small, medium and mega dams as the top most priority like the implementation of National Action Plan. The building of dams on pro-active basis is the best indigenous solution to address our immediate problems of flooding and devastation caused by this regular fury. Dams present the ideal solution of our economic, energy, unemployment and climate change problems. These will serve as reservoirs to conserve waters for use of agriculture and power generation for our industrial sector. Multi-purpose dams could produce clean energy at the rate of about one rupee per unit whereas the electricity now produced costs about 16 rupees. It can drastically cut our import bill of furnace oil running into the vicinity of 6 billion dollars per annum. The huge money could be put to better use in the economy besides reducing our budget deficit which is major cause of worry of each government. The other homespun solution is the extensive movement of saving forests from timber mafias, and growing trees all over the country wherever there is empty space.
The government should involve the private sector, civil society, media and even religious scholars to popularise the movement of tree plantation as a national, religious and international obligation. If pursued with the support of the political leadership of the country, the target of achieving 12% landmass of a country covered with forests can become a reality within a decade. The nation will learn in a big way because such a huge mobilisation for the national cause tunes the nation to face the challenges with perseverance and sagacity.
These two traits in a nation are valuable asset and such nations write their destiny with their own hands. Building of mega multipurpose dams, Bhasha, Dassu and Mangla Dam extension project and others are critical to accomplish national security doctrine of the country in the real sense. In the absence of these projects national security will remain vulnerable within and without. The impact of climate change will enhance the vulnerability because the dream of sustainable development in the country will never come true. Let us hope and pray the leadership of the country of all spectrums gets convinced on the urgency to evolve a national consensus on the criticality of building of multi-purpose dams because national security is at stake.
muhammadshaheedi@yahoo.com
Head of PPP Media Cell