LAHORE: Oxfam Pakistan launched its four-year campaign “Harvesting Global Food Security and Justice in the Face of Climate Change” at a ceremony on Thursday. The event was organised by the Indus Consortium and Oxfam.

Speakers said water, food and energy created a nexus of interdependence in Pakistan, just like around the globe, whose balance was disturbed by a globally changing climate. The nation‘s already hot climate and changing patterns of snowmelt and precipitation exacerbate existing social and economic pressures on natural resources.

The participants learnt the Punjab province with its agrarian base and high dependency on natural resources for livelihoods was more vulnerable to the effects of changing climate.

Speakers said federal and provincial governments needed to join hands with the development sector to address domestic climate change threats to population’s (particularly rural) food security by adopting and implementing measures enhancing their rights to food.

Ramesh Singh Arora, PML-N MPA, spoke on negligence and selfishness by the previous generations for worsening climate change.

“We’ve endangered the future of humanity and planet Earth. The Punjab government, however, is committed to dealing this situation and we are working day in day out to mitigate the impacts of climate change on our agriculture and food security,” Mr Arora said.

Indus Consortium Council chairman Iqbal Haider said water, food and energy were all closely intertwined and as such, there existed no simple solution for adapting to, or mitigating, climate change in Pakistan. The best strategy was to combine multiple elements, including technical advancements and social considerations to give response to this formidable challenge. “Technology no doubt is necessary but is not sufficient alone. The techno-centric approach should be complemented by considering the social concerns as well. Doing so would help in building the ownership of the campaign to counter the effects of climate change,” Mr Haider emphasised.

Muhammad Asadullah, provincial parliamentary secretary for food, presented Punjab government’s plan to achieve the goal of ensuring food security for all.

“The provincial government, under the leadership of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, is forming all-inclusive policies regarding climate change and food security besides establishing institutions fully equipped to protect our environment and enhancing agricultural productivity,” he said.

He was of the opinion that addressing the issue of food security in the face of climate change was need of the hour.

“The whole world is discussing climate change phenomenon and planning to cope this challenge. Our glaciers are melting apace meaning thereby a future prospect of drying out our rivers, therefore, we need to plan ahead of time because food production is directly related with water availability,” he added.

Saadia Sohail Rana, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s MPA, said though being an agricultural country, Pakistan had to import huge quantities of food items. “Environment protection and coping with the challenges of climate change have never been the priority of any government. We are among the countries with highest population growth but nobody cares how we will feed this huge population in the face of increasingly scarce water resources,” she said.

Oxfam Pakistan’s Javeria Afzal presented an overall outlook of GROW campaign and discussed the emergining situation of Pakistan in the context of climate change. She portrayed the picture of food insecurity across different provinces of Pakistan besides presenting an analysis of the food insecurity situation.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2014