Climatic challenges being faced by Pakistan

Despite a meagre overall contribution to the greenhouse gases, Pakistan is greatly affected by the climate threats including water stress, desertification, glacier melting, melting, extreme weather events and spread of diseases. These threats pose severe challenges to Pakistan in terms of ecology, agriculture, economic development.

The challenges facing Pakistan are enumerated as under:

• Glacial Lake Outburst Floods:
• There has been a 300% increase in GLOF events in just one year
• Global Warming: High intensity heatwave persistence has increased to 41 days per year.

Hottest cities in the world for three years straight 53.7 C

• Erratic Weather: Over the last decades, unprecedented monsoon rains have wreaked havoc with increased intensity over the years.

Pakistan suffered a loss of US$ 30 billion in last year’s floods.

• Water Scarcity: It is expected that there will be absolute water scarcity by 2025.
• Food Insecurity: expected to rise from 40% to 60% by 2050.
• Sea-level rise: It is expected that along the coast may rise by 2 to 3 feet by 2100, threatening the existence of cities of Thatta, Badin and Karachi.
• CC induced Migration: Threefold increase in climate induced migration from 0.7 M to 2.0 M by 2050.

The Government of Pakistan is aware of the dire situation and has taken a number of pro-active initiatives which are as under:

1. Benefiting optimally from the Global Shield initiative, announced at COP-27 paving the way to leverage climate-risk financing
2. Preparation for voluntary carbon market framework, which will provide guidance in the establishment of carbon markets in Pakistan
3. Joined the Plastic Free Rivers and Seas for South Asia (PLEASE) initiative for effective plastic waste management in future and to get access to international financing for the same
4. National Adaptation Plan has been developed which will steer the adaptation process with regard to climate change
5. Strengthening Adaptation and Resilience (SAR) Project for climate change has interventions for climate resilience in priority sectors as identified by provincial stakeholders comprising of WASH, Health and Agriculture
6. Pakistan has joined the Saudi and Middle East Green Initiative- (SMGI) which target planting or regenerating 50 billion trees across the region equivalent to 200 million hectares of land in regional member countries in Central Asia, West Asia, South Asia, North Africa and Sub-Sharan Africa to promote nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based approaches
7. Pakistan has endorsed the Forest Climate Change Leaders Partnership proposed by the UK Government to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030.
8. Pakistan has launched National Tree Plantation Campaign with the target of Planting of 303.77 million trees during Monsoon 2022 season out of which 71 million trees have been planted all over Pakistan so far.
9. National Clean Air Policy has been developed aiming to provide a framework for improving air quality in Pakistan. It is a national document and therefore focuses on actions at the national scale that can achieve improvements in air quality.
10. The “National Hazardous Waste Management Policy, 2022” has been developed which is a milestone achievement in addressing the issue of hazardous waste management in Pakistan. It enabled Pakistan to play a pivotal role in meeting the obligations under the Basel, Convention on, the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. In addition, it would also help Pakistan achieve the relevant Sustainable Development Goals and avail extension of the European Union’s GSP Plus status post – 2023.
11. The Living Indus Initiative aims to rejuvenate the Indus Basin into a thriving system by repairing and restoring the natural resources and ecosystems that are resilient in the face of climate change. The initiative proposes a diverse set of 25 interventions to initiate coordinated executive efforts to restore the health of the basin with particular focus on water, ecology, biodiversity, and agriculture sectors.
12. With a total budget of US$ 77.8 million, Recharge Pakistan project focused on building Pakistan’s climate resilience through eco-system-based adaptation for integrated flood management, better climate resilience, water, food, and energy security, and sustainable livelihoods in Pakistan. Its main components are enhancing resilience of vulnerable communities, and paradigm shift towards eco-bascd adaptation at critical tipping points within the country.
13. GLOF-II project is being implemented for helping vulnerable communities in the provinces of GB and KP, with objective to empower communities to identify and manage GLOFs risks, and related impacts of climate change, strengthen public services and improve community preparedness and disaster response capacities.

Note: The above information was shared with the Senate by the Minister for Climate Change and Environmental Coordination Ahmad Irfan Aslam on December 26, 2023.