Ministry to ask PM to hold climate council meeting

Islamabad : The climate change ministry will request Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to hold the first ever meeting of the Climate Council to make an action plan in coordination with the provincial governments to cope with rising challenges related to climate change.

According to the details, the previous government failed to hold even a single meeting of the Climate Council due to which the provincial authorities were not given the opportunity to provide their views about various environment-related problems confronting the country.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is the chairperson of the Climate Council and it includes the ministers for climate change, finance, food security, planning, science and technology, water resources, energy, and foreign affairs as ex-officio members.

An official said the previous government mainly focused on the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami project and ignored other challenges that had been adversely affecting the natural environment in the country.

The official record showed that the Pakistan Climate Council was formed by the Ministry of Climate Change on December 26, 2018. It was established to meet Pakistan's obligations under international conventions relating to climate change and to address its effects.

Now the climate change ministry intends to activate the council to design a strategy focusing on launching awareness campaigns against climate change in the syllabus and developing a yearly report consisting of progress, difficulties, future plans as well as an audit report and other information. A fund in this regard will also be created called the ‘Pakistan Climate Change Fund’.

Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman has already said that they would not focus just on tree plantations because there are various other measures that must be taken to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change.

She also highlighted the importance of the Climate Council and maintained that unless all the provincial governments are given proper opportunities the country cannot be able to make effective policies to protect and preserve the natural environment.