National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Climate Change Chairman Malik Muhammad Uzair Khan has said that the issues related to climate change should be dealt as national security issue for its devastating effects.
While speaking at Green Parliamentary Caucus meeting held by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in collaboration with Heinrich Boll Stiftung (HBS) Pakistan here on Thursday, Uzair Khan said that the days when climate change was perceived as ‘future issue’, were gone as the nation was now facing the real impacts and the unprecedented smog in different parts of the country was only one of its expressions.
He said that the NA’s parliamentary committee was trying to identify the legislative gaps that were causing impediments for the implementation on climate change policy. He said think tanks and media had a very crucial role to make the endeavours to respond the climate change impacts successfully.
PML-N MNA Romina Khursheed Alam highlighted the importance of ‘Green Parliamentary Caucus’ and said that the parliamentarians should join hands at this platform keeping their differences apart as responding to climate change was a national obligation to save our future generations.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) MNA Dr Arif Alvi explained the worst impacts of climate change in local context and said that people in different localities including Karachi were already confronting with number of problems related to climate change. He emphasised on strict regulations about the industrial waste as well as to protect natural ecology.
The other parliamentarians including Nafeesa Khattak, Sabhia Nazir and Muhammad Khan Daha presented an outlook of issues regarding environmental degradation at local level and demanded strict measures to protect water resources and forests.
SDPI Senior Policy Advisor Shafqat Munir earlier informed the participants that the overall understanding and awareness about climate change in the country was improving, however, in the face of dire challenges, all segments of society should be working together to respond these challenges effectively.
