Indus Consortium holds workshop on climate change

Islamabad: Sindh government is in the process of making Heat Management Plan for Karachi so that deaths can be avoided in case of next heat wave.
The information was shared by a climate change expert from LEAD International Arif Rehman at a sensitisation workshop on climate change organised by Indus Consortium on Friday.
The Heat Management Plan, to be made is collaboration with the LEAD international, is based on the strategy developed by LEAD International to counter the impact of similar heat wave that hit Ahmedabad in India in the year 2000. Around 3000 people lost their lives as a result of that heat wave. “After the plan was implemented, the deaths reduced to only three when the next heat wave struck the city in 2013,” said Arif.
He said the plan is based on creating awareness and developing an early warning system for the residents besides capacity building of departments to deal with the victims. Talking about the difference in the number of deaths in rural and urban areas of Sindh as a result of the heat wave, he said that it was the result of Urban Heat Island.
“Surface area that absorbs heat is huge in cities like Karachi because of buildings and other constructions as compared to rural area where only the land absorbs heat. The heat absorbed in an area is released at night and results in the formation of Urban Heat Island. It was because of the same reason that among the total incidents, 60 per cent occurred in the homes,” he explained. With rising temperatures all around the country, Arif said that same phenomenon can be repeated in other big cities including Islamabad.
He said that to cope with such situations and other negative impacts of climate change, Pakistan needs to focus on developing national and local adaptation plans. “The change has occurred and cannot be reversed. All we can do is to control further damage and prepare or adapt according to changing climate.”
Participants of the workshop blamed bad governance, lack of vision in political leadership and scarcity of resources for the damage Pakistan has to bear for last many years as a result of climate change.
“As developed countries were held responsible for the damage, they established Green Climate Fund within the framework of UNFCC to redistribute money from the developed to the developing world in order to assist developing countries in adaptation and mitigation practices to counter climate change. India formed 48 small dams with the international assistance where as Pakistan was not able to utilize the international funding to control the damage caused by climate change. “About Climate Change Policy, he said that the policy is there which clearly defines the role of different government departments but there is lack of coordination among different sectors responsible to implement that policy.