Pakistan among top 10 countries affected due to climate change

Islamabad:Pakistan has persistently been reckoned among the top 10 most affected countries due to climate change where its recent ranking descended from number 5. A recent German Watch Report of the Long-term Global Climate Risk Index 2020, a global think-tank working on climate change, had rated Pakistan number 8th most affected country due to adverse impacts of climate change.

The data was reckoned from 2000 to 2019 that mentioned the country facing 0.3 per cent life losses per 100,000 inhabitants and $3.8 billion economic losses due to recurrent phenomenon of floods and climate change induced catastrophes.

The Ministry of Climate Change had a dedicated arm of scientists and climate change experts at Global Climate Impact Studies Center (GCISC) that were extensively working to compile an intricate set of data based on emissions from industrial, petroleum, agricultural and livestock sectors.

A ministry official told APP that Pakistan was contributing less than one percent to the global emissions and was not provided any global assistance particularly on cutting down its GHG emissions resulting global warming and environmental degradation, however, the country had managed on its own to protect the global environment.

He added that apart from this achievement the country was going to achieve first billion plantation targets under the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami programme in June 2021. The thriving mangroves in the country were the only increasing plantation of the species all over the world with a 300 percent increase since its conservation along the coastal areas started.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam had also announced an additional one billion mangroves plantation under the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami project keeping in view its increasing rate.

The Prime Minister had also initiated the Protected Areas Initiative aimed to establish 15 National Parks sprawling over areas of 7,300 square kilometers that comprised mountains in the Northern region to the scrub forests in the plains and a marine protected area in the south of the country.

Pakistan had also used COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to provide job opportunities to pandemic-idle workforce including youth and working women of impoverished households in the rural areas.

The Green Stimulus package of Rs2400 billion had helped the masses in raising nurseries, protecting forests and also planting olive and fruit trees and generating alternate incomes through honey farmingThe country had bagged global acclaim from World Economic Forum, IUCN, WWF, Normandy Chair for Peace and many others showered unreluctant praise for the initiative that was killing two birds with one stone as conserving environment at one hand and ensuring employment for jobless people during pandemic lockdown.