PM Shehbaz Sharif for constituting expert committee on climate change

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has directed to constitute an expert committee on climate change which would be advising the federal government on the issues related to various aspects of climate change such as climate finance, adaptation, and loss and damage assessment.

The prime minister issued directives while chairing first meeting of the Pakistan Climate Change Council (PCCC).

In the meeting, the prime minister said that the climate change induced devastating floods had caused havoc across the country, especially in the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan.

Despite having less than 1 per cent share in the global carbon emission, Pakistan was one of the 10 countries most affected by climate change, he underlined as quoted by PMO.

The premier urged the need to improve risk mapping, capacity building to access climate finance as well as loss and damage assessment ability.

He also emphasized on including risk mitigation and adaptation in disaster management strategies to reduce damages in the future.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also stressed on the need of better coordination among the federating units on environment issues as environment was a devolved subject after the 18th Constitutional Amendment.

The meeting was briefed that this year, Pakistan suffered overwhelming events like severe drought (that dried the delta area of Sindh province), forest fires, heat waves, glacier melting with three times than the average rate, glacial outbreak floods followed by heavy monsoon rains, were induced by climate change.

It was informed that the World Bank had estimated Pakistan’s recent flood losses at US $ 40 billion.

Pakistan faced 152 extreme events related to climate change in the last two decades and there was 300 percent increase in Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF), the meeting was told.

The meeting was apprised that being a chair of Group 77 countries, Pakistan would also be pleading the case of the member countries with regard to the effects of Climate Change.

The participants of the meeting while appreciating the initiative of the federal government emphasized on the need of devising a National Adaptation Plan and strict implementation of the existing environment laws to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The meeting was attended by Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb, Minister for Water Resources Syed Khursheed Shah, Minister for Power Engineer Khurram Dastgir, Prime Minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Sardar Tanveer Ilyas, Provincial Ministers and officials from Gilgit Baltistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, environmental experts, lawyers, environmental journalists and members from the civil society.