Says there is a need for an increase in climate-smart investments in infrastructure, businesses and skills. PHOTO: INP
He said that in order to deal with the perils linked to climate, there was a need for increase in climate-smart investments in infrastructure, businesses and skills.
“There is a pressing need for making climate change concern an integral part of socio-economic development policies and action-plans, if we want to boost the country’s climate resilience against exacerbating impacts of climate change, particularly recurring droughts and floods, shifting and reducing rainfall patterns, glacial melt, depleting river flows and sea-level rise,” he said.
His statement was in response to a recent Climate Change Profile of Pakistan report published by the Asian Development Bank.
Mushahid said the role of policymakers and planners was very much critical in this regard and urged them to keep themselves abreast of shifting global, regional and national climate change patterns and possible adaptation and mitigation measures being adopted by the world to cope with the fallouts of the global warming-induced climate change.
The report, which provides with a summary of climate change risks in Pakistan, aims at policymakers, project developers, and development professionals, whose work may be touched by climate change.
The report says that over last five decades the annual average temperature in the country has increased by roughly 0.5 degree centigrade, with the number of heat wave days per year increasing nearly fivefold in the last three decades.
Besides, annual precipitation has historically shown high variability, but has slightly increased in the last 50 years.
Sea level along the Karachi coast has risen approximately 10 centimetres in the last century, devouring thousands of hectares of coastal lands, according to the ADB’s report.
The report further warns that the annual mean temperature in Pakistan was expected to rise by three to five degrees centigrade for a central global emissions scenario, while higher global emissions may yield a rise of four to six degree centigrade.
Predicting the future scenario of the sea-level rise, the report says the sea-level to go up by a further 60 centimetres by the end of the century and affect the low-lying coastal areas south of Karachi toward Keti Bander and the Indus River delta.
Referring to the report findings, the minister highlighted that climatic changes are potentially bear various negative effects on farm productivity, water availability, increase coastal erosion and seawater incursion and frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
“Therefore, coping with climate risks through adaptation and mitigation efforts - particularly in the agriculture, water, energy and health sectors - is now inevitable for the country, which can be achieved only through well-coordinated efforts and programmes by federal ministries, provincial and district departments,” Mushahid said.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 5th, 2017.
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