Environmental activists demand end to fossil fuel projects

Civil society leaders and fishermen rights activists have demanded of the World Bank to withdraw its participation from all the fossil fuel projects and urged Pakistan to immediately stop building new fossil fuel energy projects.

The Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) organised a rally on Friday in Ibrahim Hyderi, a coastal neighbourhood, in the light of a startling report on the environmental crisis released by a UN inter-governmental panel. PFF leaders Saeed Baloch, Fatima Majeed, Majeed Motani and Talib Kutchi led the rally.

It was said that in the light of the report, the looming environmental crisis could be catastrophic for Pakistan if necessary steps were not taken in advance.

Among many other revelations, the UN report showed the world would probably reach or exceed 1.5 degrees C of warming within just the next two decades, it was cited.

Participants said the net effect of such increased warming would be the melting of polar ice caps and it would be devastating for countries like Pakistan that had more glaciers outside the polar ice caps than anywhere on earth.