Climate refugees: PM warns of 'catastrophic consequences' of climate change

Imran Khan addresses UN Climate Action Summit in New York

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Prime Minister Imran Khan has warned the world of “catastrophic consequences” of climate change, saying “there will be climate refugees in the future.”

“Already in Pakistan many [climate] refugees are coming in from Afghanistan due to the prolonged drought in the country,” he said in his address to the UN Climate Action Summit in New York on Monday.

Leaders from governments, the private sector and civil society presented concrete actions, plans and initiatives to tackle climate change.

PM Imran, who is in New York to attend the 74^th UN General Assembly session, attended the event being hosted to accelerate action to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

He said Pakistan was the seventh most vulnerable country in the world to global warming despite that it contributed less than one per cent to the total greenhouse gas emissions.

“The major hurdle to tackle global warming is that many countries do not take it as big challenge as it is and I fear that if the temperature kept rising then millions and millions of people would suffer due to the shortage of freshwater,” he said.

The premier urged the world community to join in and play their role to cope up the imminent challenge. “Climate change is something which cannot be dealt by any individual country until the world gets together,” the premier added.

PM Imran said humans had the capacity to fight any crisis and expressed hope that the world community would take the cognisance of this crucial issue by the end of this conference.