‘Need to accelerate efforts to address climate change challenges’

Zahid Hamid inaugurates art exhibition on environmental degradation in Swat Valley

ISLAMABAD: With Pakistan among the top 10 countries most vulnerable to the impact of climate change, there is a need for efforts which address this challenge effectively.

This was stated by Minister for Climate Change Zahid Hamid while inaugurating an art exhibition in the capital on the effects of environmental volatility.

The ministry is supporting the three-day painting and photography exhibition “Climate Change and Art – A Practitioners Retreat” at Gallery- 6 in F-6 Markaz.



The exhibition aims to create awareness about the effects of climate change. It showcases 50 pieces of art created by 16 different artists who spent a week in Swat to witness first-hand impacts of climate change and then depict it in their work.

Inaugurating the exhibit, Hamid said the government was making efforts to tackle climate change by devising a national policy on the matter along with formulating a framework for its implementation.

He reiterated that Pakistan is among the top ten countries that are most vulnerable to the climate change.

“There is a need to accelerate the efforts to address the challenges of climate change effectively,” Hamid said.

The minister lauded work of the artists and said that they had managed to capture the impact of climate change in Pakistan.

Art for social change

The exhibition is part of the “Art for Social Change” initiative and was a joint venture between the ministry, Gallery 6 and East-West Centre Association’s Islamabad Chapter, a statement issued by the organisers said.



To create art for the event, 12 artists, including six painters, three photographers, a sculptor, a filmmaker and a writer were sent to Swat for a week at the end of August 2016.

The artists who participated included Abid Khan, Ahsan Jawaid, Ali Ijaz, Raja Najmul Hasan, Zainul Abedin, Saram Maqbool, Ayub Wali, Shaheer Ahmad, Irfan Gul Dahri, SM Khayyam, Junaid Baber and Ayesha Akif.

They captured the landscapes of the valley and documented disaster-prone areas like riverside settlements, especially those which had been washed away by the 2010 floods, degraded land, near-total absence of birds and wildlife, deforestation, and many other subjects relating to climate change.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 8^th, 2016.