Inaugurating the spring tree plantation drive in his hometown, he recalled that when he came to Mianwali in his childhood there was a jungle in Kundian but today when he viewed the area from his helicopter he could see no trees. He regretted that the people of Pakistan don’t know the importance of jungles. His emphasis on the ‘tree tsunami’ to mitigate the baleful climate effects has been his trademark battle cry. As if catching up with Pakistan leader, US President Donald Trump, at the World Economic Forum last month, also announced the United States would join the forum’s initiative to plant one trillion trees to fight climate change. But questions have been raised as to the efficacy of the tree initiative to meet the intended goal.
A report in the New York Times acknowledges that while planting trees would slow down the planet’s warming, the only thing that will save us and future generations from paying a huge price in dollars, lives and damage to nature is rapid and substantial reductions in carbon emissions from fossil fuels, to net zero by 2050. Even a 16-year-old can tell you that, the report says rhetorically. Focusing on trees as the big solution to climate change is a dangerous diversion, the NYT report warns.
Worse still, it takes attention away from those responsible for the carbon emissions that are pushing us toward disaster. Be that as it may, while tree plantation is certainly a surefire recipe to contain global warming to a certain degree, sadly there is no silver bullet solution to climate change.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 24th, 2020.
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