ISLAMABAD: Climate Change Minister Senator Mushahidullah Khan has pledged to work with the global community to boost green growth initiatives in a bid to achieve sustainable development goals by exploiting natural resources in a sustainable manner, says a statement issued on Sunday.
Speaking at ‘Global Green Growth Week 2017’ that was held at the United Nations Conference Centre (UNCC) in Ethiopia, he said: “ Not only the lives of us but also of those of our future generations are at risk of falling into quagmire of unending hunger, poverty, diseases, food insecurity, pollution, water scarcity, and disasters, if we continue to devour into natural resources greedily and callously, particularly water, land and forest, the climate change minister warned the global leaders gathered at a week-long international moot on green growth for sustainable human development in Ethiopia”.
“However, the world must jointly adopt a sane path for achieving economic growth fuelled by natural resources utilised in a sustainable manner. So that ability of the natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services for future generations is not compromised,” Mushahidullah Khan said during his keynote address to the participants of the event.
At the green growth event, a number of key topics, including moblisation of green/climate finance to bankable projects in developing countries, sustainable management of natural resources to address water and food security challenges and adopting policies that drive environmentally-sustainable and socially inclusive global economic growth, particularly in developing countries.
Mushahidullah Khan pointed out that many countries have already become more efficient in using natural resources and the services provided by the environment, producing more sustainable economic output per unit of carbon emitted and of energy or raw materials consumed. Nevertheless, progress is too sluggish. Besides, if emissions embodied in international trade are included, advances in overall environmental productivity of these countries- most of them developed countries – are more modest.
Meanwhile, during his meeting with the Global Green Growth Institute Director General Frank Rijsberman, on the sidelines of the event, Mushahidullah said the rich countries should exercise sanity in tapping into natural resources for achieving their economic development goals and help developing countries to promote green growth programmes in urban planning, energy, water, land use, agriculture and irrigation sectors through transfer of technology, technical know-how and finance.
Rijsberman assured the minister of all-out support to widen the green growth initiatives in Pakistan and help boost access to renewable energy, green urban development, water and irrigation efficiency technologies and climate-resilient infrastructure development programmes.
SEVENTH ISLAMIC CONFERENCE OF ENVIRONMENT MINISTERS TO BE HELD ON WEDNESDAY: The Seventh Islamic Conference of Environment Ministers (ICEM) will discuss the adoption of a guidance document on green cities for climate change adaptation.
The conference, to be held in Morocco’s capital Rabat on October 25-26 with the participation of ministers of environment from the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), seeks to circulate the document among the OIC countries, to be used as a guide in the preparation of relevant national plans.
The document calls for sustainable urban planning to be a priority in the development policies of the OIC member states. It also calls for working on legal measures for green construction projects and increasing the capacity of existing cities for climate change adaptation.