‘Solely planting trees no solution to climate change’

Islamabad: Showing a major shift in its policy the climate change ministry has turned its attention toward some highly important issues instead of solely focusing on planting trees in the country.

According to the details, Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman has conveyed to the officials that their ministry would now move in the direction in which it would try to be able to address all the issues related to climate change. An official said, “Plantation of trees and protection and preservation of green areas is part of our bigger plan that will help address the problems enhancing negative impacts of the climate change.”

“We appreciate the work done by the previous government, especially with regard to the plantation of trees. But trees are planted by the relevant forest departments of the provincial governments and the climate change ministry only facilitates them in this respect. There are some other issues that must be tackled by the ministry because we are running short of time,” he said. The climate change ministry and the provincial forest departments achieved a 44 per cent plantation target in March this year set to plant 3.2 billion trees by 2023 under the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme (TBTTP). Thousands of green jobs have been provided to the young people who are currently serving as ‘nighebans’ in national parks across the country.