‘Efforts underway for building greener, sustainable future amid COVID-19’

Islamabad : Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam has said that the incumbent government is taking all-out coping measures to address deleterious impacts of global climate crisis on the country’s socio-economic sectors for achieving environmental and economic sustainability.

In a press statement issued here on Sunday, he explained that the measures being taken under the Prime Minister's world-acclaimed vision for Clean Green Pakistan include nation-wide massive tree plantation and protection activities, promotion of renewable energy, shelving of coal-based energy projects, promotion of electric vehicles, mass transit system, establishment of new national parks and protection of the existing ones and launch of US$ 500 million green euro bond for overall ecosystem restoration in the country.

"The incumbent government of Prime Minister Imran Khan is committed to the challenge of initiating a green recovery through ecosystem restoration to protect nature and create much needed green employment", he stressed.

Malik Amin Aslam said that the ambitious green stimulus initiative, launched last year by PM Imran Khan to sustain economic instability caused due to Covid-19 crisis, focuses on innovative financial tools to help build sustainable, responsible economic growth and achieve environmental sustainability and climate resilience.

He recalled that the year 2020 was expected to be a “super year for nature”, designed to propel the climate and biodiversity agendas onto the global stage. But nature itself, however, had other plans.

He highlighted that the two striking lessons taught by the COVID-19 crisis are firstly, that nature functions with limits and thresholds which demand respect, and when crossed, have consequences accordingly. As humans pushed the thresholds of their existence, nature reacted in shape of the Covid-19 crisis and unleashed the zoonotic pandemic upon humans, leaving the world in shock and awe.

The second lesson emerged with hope that the human's renewed and sustainable relationship with nature is possible, but needs to be supported by political commitment and collective action, he added.

"Both the lessons are calling for rebalancing of our relationship with nature." Malik Amin said.

He recalled that over the past few months, while many countries struggled l to adjust this new normal, Pakistan acted with out of the box approaches, sensing a silver lining around the confusion and uncertainty.

The government’s green agenda, built upon the successful implementation of the Billion Tree Tsunami (2014-18), had already accepted the premise that nature based solutions not only protect and preserve nature but also have the potential to spur an alternate green economy. More importantly, it had effectively created the launch pad for a directional shift of the economy towards sustainable growth, Malik Amin highlighted.

Give the backdrop, the COVID-19 crisis extended an opportunity and Pakistan seized it to break out of the depression and reinvigorate an ailing economy with a “Green Stimulus” initiative with two objectives: protecting nature and creating green jobs, the PM's aide said.

He elaborated that the focal areas for the intervention consisted of planting more trees, expanding and reviving our protected areas and improving urban sanitation, with a goal to generate quick employment while also allowing the country to swim out of the crisis on a nature-positive pathway.

For financing the Green Stimulus, the climate change ministry envisioned three phases, all of which now in place with specialised funding options, Malik Amin highlighted.

Spelling out the details, he said first ongoing phase was fully funded through “self-budgetary provisions”, which had to be recalibrated and prioritised towards green job creation.

As a result, the purely government financed activities, amounting to Rs10 billion have already delivered 85,000 daily wage green jobs across the country in nursery raising, plant care, protection of natural forests and firefighting activities and we have further planned to raise this to 200,000 daily wage jobs within the next few months.

For the second phase, the post-COVID-19 recovery, a new platform “Ecosystem Restoration Fund”

was also launched to allow willing partners (public and private)

to credibly and transparently join Pakistan’s green recovery, he said, adding that substantial support funds of $180 million have been secured through multi-lateral partners (led by the World Bank) proving that if the right plan is in place with full ownership, the funds can always be generated.

These funds will support the expansion of the tree planting initiative as well as the ecological preservation of the recently announced 15 national parks – all of which got announced during the COVID-19 crisis, as the country increased its protected areas coverage by 50 percent, the PM's aide elaborated.

Malik Amin said further that despite all odds, the country's first institutional National Parks Service was now underway, targeting 5,000 nature jobs to be generated for youth people who will be trained to become guardians and custodians of nature.

All this activity is designed to address the unexpected spike in unemployment across the country and, at the same time, link economic activity with the preservation of nature, he added.

Talking about another flagship green recovery effort of then press government, Malik Amin said that in the medium term, an ingeniously designed “Debt for Nature” swap scheme has recently been put in the pipeline, targeting US $1 billion funding. But this is subject to a renegotiation of Pakistan’s burgeoning debt with countries supporting a green revival of the global economy, he said.

"There are strong indications of a growing global appetite for supporting this directional shift and Pakistan has been recently chosen to pilot an impact based nature bond – linking debt retirement with quantifiable performance on biodiversity protection," the aide highlighted.

Talking about introduction of 500 million 'Green Euro Bond, he said that during the pandemic, the country made a bold announcement to shift away from a coal-based pathway towards renewable energy by announcing a target of achieving 60 percent clean energy mix by 2030.

Then, Pakistan quickly followed up this announcement by shelving 2600MW of imported coal projects and replacing them with 3700MW of hydroelectric projects, he highlighted.

"Sensing a growing appetite for green and low-carbon investments in the international capital markets, Pakistan is all set to launch its first “Green Euro Bond” for $500 million this month," he said, hoping it would harbinger the country’s entry into an expanding and eco-conscious marketplace.

Malik Amin said further that while treading this pathway, Pakistan also realised timely that to preserve nature you need to value nature, particularly in economic terms.

Subsequently the present government took the lead by initiating a first of its kind “Natural Capital Valuation” exercise to determine the true value of the natural asset that it is protecting and preserving, not only for itself but also a world besieged by the growing crisis of climate change and biodiversity loss, he added.