Senator Sherry Rehman, the federal minister for climate change and the environment in Pakistan has said that climate change is disastrous for all of the world’s ecosystems, including humans.
“What went on in Pakistan will not stay in Pakistan, It is the need of the hour that we respond to climate change proactively,” she said while speaking on the second day of the ongoing Pakistan International Maritime Expo and Conference (PIMEC) on Saturday.
The National Institute of Maritime Affairs (NIMA) is hosting the conference, which is taking place alongside the international maritime exercise Aman-23 at the Karachi Expo Centre, with the theme “Embracing Blue Economy — Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Countries.”
The conference is also attended by international and national scholars from China, Germany, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, the UK and the US. A majority of international scholars are also joining the conference online.
“Bombing and other methods of modern warfare directly harm wildlife and biodiversity. Pollution from war contaminates bodies of water, soil and air and makes areas unsafe for people to inhabit. Therefore, states must pursue peace,” Ms Rehman said.
She said that oceans were the most oversized carbon sinks in the world and that turning to the blue economy model was the key.
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“Oceans have absorbed 90 per cent of global warming in the last 50 years. Microplastics have made the situation worse and are choking the oceans. The entire marine life is ingesting plastic,” she said.“We are seeing climate change impacts crossing borders and wreaking havoc, whether it’s hurricane Fiona that has hit Puerto Rico, children starving in Somalia from protracted drought, Nigeria battling floods like never before and the forest fires and heatwaves in all of Europe and USA,”.
She explained that global warming was triggering similar futures of climate distress, driven either by famine, drought, or flooding and rising sea levels which stalk the developing world, the Horn of Africa, the LDCs and the Small Island States, where the gap between needs and resources is too huge.
Talking about the Living Indus Initiative, she said: “Living Indus is an umbrella initiative and a call to action to lead and consolidate initiatives to restore the ecological health of the Indus within the boundaries of Pakistan, which is most vulnerable to climate change,”.
She maintained that extensive consultations with the public sector, private sector, experts, and civil society led to a ‘living’ menu of 25 preliminary interventions, which focus on nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based adaptation approaches to protect, conserve, and restore natural, terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems in the Indus Basin.
“Pakistan is consistently ranked as among the 10 most vulnerable countries to the effects of global climate change, most of the impacts on the Indus system,” she said, adding: “Climate change, for Pakistan, is primarily a water challenge.”
This story was adapted from Dawn.
