'Number of glacial lakes increased in northern areas during past three years'
The Attabad Lake was formed following a massive landslide in 2010, which buried 20 people beneath it and blocked the flow of River Hunza, creating a natural dam. The water has displaced thousands of people and inundated over 19 kilometres of the Karakoram Highway. PHOTO: FRIDA KHAN
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam on Friday warned that floods caused by glacial lakes have increased five times during the past three years due to a 'massive' increase in global warming.
He remarked while addressing as a keynote speaker at a seminar in connection with the International Mountain Day on Sustainable Mountain Tourism jointly organised by the Ministry of Climate Change and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Islamabad.
Amin said the average temperature is increasing at a doubled rate in Pakistan compared to the rest of the world due to the geology of the region. "Due to an inclined terrain and topography of the country, whatever natural calamity occurs in the north it gets shifted to the entire country," he added.
The SAPM said that under the second phase of the Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF-II) project proper data of melting glaciers was being received and helping out in informed decisions for disaster mitigation and adaptation.
The GLOF phenomenon, he said, is forced upon the country due to environmental degradation as 70 per cent of infrastructure used to get damaged due to glacial flooding and hurricanes like extreme weather events.
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He added that glacial melting due to temperature rise could not be halted rather adapted through nature-based solutions. “The expansion of national parks in the northern areas along with a high altitude corridor linking all national parks at 14,000 feet would allow nature to be a bulwark to climate change,” the SAPM added.
During the COP-26 international climate change summit, he had said that Pakistan apprised the world community that loss and damage mechanism is important for countries like Pakistan due to the huge economic burden bore by its economy in lieu of damages incurred by GLOF like events.
On the occasion, Resident Representative UNDP-Pakistan, Knut Ostby said that climate change is real and the solution to cope with it on a big scale is through reducing air pollution, fossil fuels consumption and recycling of reusable materials.
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He said that the UNDP-Pakistan did a scientific analysis of lakes and glaciers to select particular districts in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) for installing early warning systems, weather monitoring technologies and sustainable agriculture practices under the GLOF project.
He suggested that Pakistan needed to work out sufficient financial solutions for supporting nature-based solutions and GLOF like projects.
A panel discussion was also organised at the occasion moderated by WWF-Pakistan official Dr Imran Saqib Khalid, where Canadian Ambassador Wendy Gilmour, Amin Aslam, Knut Ostby, Climate Adviser, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Sobia Becker, Environmental Specialist at World Bank Rahat Jabeen and Managing Director Hagler Bailly Vaqar Zakaria presented their views during the discussion.