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Provinces to step up efforts to cope with climate change

Ministry setting up green climate fund to provide support for provinces

APP April 04, 2017

Speakers said a local adaptation plan of action needs to be adopted by the government to cope with these issues and make communities resilient to climate change. PHOTO: REUTERS

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister of Climate Change Zahid Hamid has emphasised that central and provincial governments should ramp up efforts for implementing the climate change policy in coordination with each other, which will mitigate the risk of disaster and damage to the national economy.

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The minister stated this while discussing a plan for improved execution of the climate change policy in the third meeting of the National Climate Change Policy Implementation Committee on Monday.

“A standardised pro forma will be prepared by the Ministry of Climate Change and it will be sent to all departments and ministries concerned at the federal and provincial levels for updating their progress on policy implementation,” Hamid said.

He asked the ministries and departments to seek funds for climate change projects in their annual budgets. “Climate change policy and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should be integrated,” he suggested.

Meeting participants reviewed the progress on decisions taken in the previous meeting. The first decision required the provinces to make efforts to implement the actions identified in a framework.

Governments of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan have presented reports on their performance in that regard.

The second decision was that Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency and provincial environmental agencies should be included in the assessment of climate change impact.

A concept note on the effects of climate change on development projects has been developed by the Ministry of Climate Change and the United Nations Development Programme.

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It was also decided to constitute a committee for rationalising the environmental quality standards in consultation with the provinces and broader stakeholders.

The committee will revise the standards on the basis of scopes of different sectors and industry-specific issues.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th, 2017.

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