Minister of National Food Security and Research Syed Fakhar Imam Friday said that per-capita contribution in the green house gas emissions by Pakistan was less than 1 percent and ranked at 135th position globally. However, with regard to vulnerability, Pakistan has been ranked in top ten most affected countries due to its geographical location.
He expressed these views while addressing the Ministerial Roundtable on climate actions for resilience and sustainability of Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific Ministerial Session. The event was organized by FAO in collaboration with Government of Bangladesh, said a press release. Imam said that in the last 20 years, Pakistan has lost 0.5 percent of its GDP and has suffered substantial economic losses worth billion and has observed 152 extreme weather events.
He said that climatic changes were expected to have wide-ranging impacts, such as: reduced agricultural productivity, increased variability of water availability, increased coastal erosion and seawater intrusion, and increased frequency of extreme weather affectations.
Fakhar said that the governments efforts in restoring the degraded ecosystem and increasing the forest cover through its flagship mega project of Ten Billon Tree Plantation was worth-mentioning which appreciated and acknowledged globally. Such type of mitigation measures need to be expanded to reverse or reduce the negative impacts on the agriculture, forestry and its related sectors, he remarked. The minister said that in addition, there are number of initiatives which were under implementation by the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, the Ministry of Climate Change and various provincial governments.
Our development partners including UN agencies were supporting in managing climate changes in Pakistan, he said. FAO, he said, was supporting a climate resilient project” named Transforming Indus Basin with Climate Resilient Agriculture and water management”.
This project, he said was using the climate resilient agriculture practices and the farmers were adopting these on their field.Similarly, Government of Pakistan with technical assistance of UN was working for the ecological restoration of the Indus basin by the name of “Living River Initiative”.
This initiative was of high significance as it will address the ecological restoration issues in the upper catchment and improve water quality downstream with positive impact on the agriculture, forestry and fisheries, he added.
He said that Pakistan with technical assistance of UNDP was working on Scaling up of Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Risk Reduction in Northern Pakistan to mitigate and manage floods. Further, Pakistan is going to initiate the “Recharge Pakistan” programme, to increase ground water and surface water availability for agriculture and other uses, the minister added.
