Pakistan termed most vulnerable to pollution

Participants at two day international conference urge developed nations to play their part.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is the most vulnerable country in South Asia to pollution because of the large-scale adoption of generators and uninterruptible power supply units. This was observed by Adil Najam, director of The Frederick S Pardee Center at Boston University in USA, during a two-day international conference on climate change and development that concluded on Friday, October 22.

However, he seemed pleased with the wide-scale use of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) in the country. CNG is used as an alternative fuel in cars because it costs almost half that of petrol and diesel. It is also more environment-friendly than petrol and diesel, which is an added advantage.

Najam urged developing countries to provide means to the developing countries and help them in coping with the climate change.

“The developed countries that are polluting the world most must facilitate the developing countries in the process of adaptation [to help reduce pollution],” he added.

Chandra Bushan, associate director for Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi, said that India produced all its electricity from coal, hydro, nuclear and hydel plants.

“There is a need to adopt measures to help overcome the environmental problems that has become challenging for the South Asian and European countries,” he said.

Hameedullah Jan Afridi, federal minister for Environment, said Pakistan’s contribution to world pollution was minor and it was suffering from more than it deserved.

“Due to the climate change we have not only faced devastating floods and other natural calamities but are also suffering gradual rise in temperature, which is harming our agriculture output,” he said during his speech.

He added, “Pakistan has placed environment in top five priorities and will formulate a climate policy by early next year.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2010.