LAHORE, Pakistan: Ambassador of France to Pakistan Martine Dorance and Ambassador designate of the EU Jean-Francois Cautain jointly inaugurated a two-day conference on “Pakistan Sey Paris: on the Road to 2015 Paris Climate Conference” started at Alhamra Arts Council here on Tuesday.
On the occasion, giving opening remarks Ambassador of France to Pakistan Martine Dorance highlighted the 21st session of the conference, also known as the “2015 Paris Climate Conference” going to be started on December 11, 2015 in France.
She said that France was playing a leading role to ensure convergence of all the different points of view and facilitate consensus building among all the stakeholder. The conference will bring together 40,000 participants in total, including country delegates, observers and civil society members to constitute the largest diplomatic event to be hosted by France and one of the largest climate conference ever organized.
In Pakistan, the French Embassy has been working proactively in close collaboration with the Pakistani government and the civil society throughout the year to create a COP21 momentum and raise awareness about climate change, she added.
The Ambassador said that “Pakistan Sey Paris: on the road to 2015 Paris Conference” was a milestone event, it offers an unprecedented opportunity to all Pakistani stakeholder to coordinate their action and inform the public about it.
Addressing the conference, other speakers including Arif Ahmed Khan secretary Ministry of Climate Change, Senator Javed Jabbar, Neil Buhne UN resident Coordinator, Dr Dominique Raynaud French Glaciologist and Dr Ghulam Rasul Director Pakistan Meteorological Department said that Pakistan was facing multiple threats of climate change which affected millions of people due to floods during last few years.
They said that more than 80 percent population depends upon natural resources which are also being effected due to climate change, governments, civil society, media and NGOs should join hands for collective efforts to save the environment for our next generations.
Speakers also highlighted the effects to global climate change and appealed for a regional panel to meet this challenge.
“In 1992, the United Nations and its member states alerted the seriousness of global warming by the scientific community, decided to take steps at global level and still efforts are being made on global as well as state level”, they added.
They said that climate change was a reality and it had been seen in Pakistan also in the form of three heat waves which caused deaths of dozens of people on Karachi.
APP
