Instead of taking help from donors, Pakistan requires to come up with ways through science to better its air quality
TURBAT: The recent UNO report shows that Pakistan has occupied the fifth position in the Global Climate Risk, including the 10 most-effected countries by climate change among which Puerto Rico, Myanmar, Haiti, the Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Thailand, Nepal and Dominica are at top of the list. It was estimated that the developing countries are affected more by climate change because their vulnerability has increased and it is more than they can cope. Furthermore, one of the authors of the report, David Eskstein, had mentioned that the country’s geographical locations have made it more “prone to extreme weather events, in particular, heavy rainfall.” Since 1998 and 2018 nearly some 10,000 people died due to floods and heatwaves in Pakistan. Besides this, Pakistan was on the third position among the most affected countries. Pakistan will have to suffer through drastic changes in climate and deal with increasing pollution which is only making matters worse. The effects of climate change are far worse than we can imagine; take the example of the Lahore smog. Pakistan can obviously take support from donors like Green Climate Fund to combat the climate problem but it would not be a wise decision. It would be better for Pakistan to solve this issue independently. Instead of taking help from donors, the country requires to come up with campaigns to seek innovative ways through science and technology to better its air quality. Only then will we have a chance to fight the impacts of climate change.
Farahnaz Farooq
Published in The Express Tribune, December 18th, 2019.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
