Pakistan’s climate policies are a ‘joke’, says Imran Khan

Pakistan’s commitment to tackling climate change is a “joke” lacking proper funding and support from government officials, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan said in an interview with RTCC.

The PTI chief praised the creation of a National Climate Change Ministry, but questioned the level of support allocated to it by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government. “They (the federal government) need to back it up with supportive funding and capacity, which are both missing,” he said. “The paltry funds allocated to the Ministry of Climate Change this year are a joke.

“It actually shows the totally ridiculous and confused priorities of the government which is hell bent upon wasting public finances on extravagant schemes like green and yellow taxis, freebie laptops and building the Guinness world record for the most expensive metros in the world.”

According to the latest budget, funding for the climate ministry is Rs 39.752 million.

Khan said the government’s priorities need to be redirected towards issues which are directly impacting people, such as climate change, and not driven by the urge to feed what he described as corrupt mafias. Instead, he suggested the government should focus on capitalising on the large renewable resources of green energy, such as hydro, solar, wind and nuclear, to end the energy crisis.

“In addition we need to reverse our fast-depleting forest resources – which we are doing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. All of this is sensible development for Pakistan and provides global climate mitigation measures for the world,” Khan said.

Khan stressed the need to emphasise how Pakistan is suffering from what he termed “climate injustice” at the hands of rich and most-polluting countries. “Rich countries should not only assist Pakistan in mitigation and adaptation efforts but also compensate us for the tremendous economic losses we face each year,” he said.

Adapting to climate change is an issue of life and death for Pakistan, he said, “we need to create a focused adaptation plan to deal with climate-related disasters and also invest in climate-resilient infrastructure development in the country.”