The people of Karachi could save 1,500 megawatts of electricity by voluntarily switching off the bulbs in their houses for an hour daily, said Karachi Commissioner Roshan Ali Sheikh.
He said that the growing threat of global warming and associated weather changes have posed a serious threat to mankind as well as to the environment that, therefore, demand concerted efforts to address the challenges people are exposed to in the form of floods, torrential rains and other natural calamities.
“Natural calamities caused due to global warming demand that a pragmatic approach is adopted to slow down the pace of warming,” he added.
He said, “We need not only curtail further destruction of forests, but must also focus on increasing the area of forest covered land.”
The commissioner said that plantation of trees is a collective responsibility of all citizens, and industrialisation without environmental considerations, deforestation and unchecked population growth are also some of the major contributory factors towards global warming.
He said that although Pakistan has little contribution in global warming, it is still among the countries that are adversely affected because of it.
“This is because the source of all our rivers are the glaciers in the Himalayas. We, therefore, have to make all efforts to protect our people, land and livelihood against consequent devastations getting all the more evident with every passing day,” he added.
