Minister for Climate Change, Mushaidullah Khan watering a tree he planted at COMSATS University
Minister for Climate Change, Mushaidullah Khan watering a tree he planted at COMSATS University

Each year Earth Day, which is celebrated on April 22, marks the anniversary of what many people say is the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. Thanks to books like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring about the detrimental effects of chemicals on birds and the ‘flower power’ activism in the US in the late 1960s, ‘environment’ became a household word.

This year marks Earth Day’s 45th anniversary and to join in with the global celebrations, the Centre for Climate Research and Development (CCRD) at the COMSATS University campus in Islamabad, organised the screening of an environment film, Chasing Ice. The film focuses on acclaimed environmental photographer James Balog who in 2005, headed to the Arctic on a difficult assignment for National Geographic: to capture images to help tell the story of the Earth’s changing climate.

With a band of young adventurers in tow, Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient towers of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate due to global warming. The film is both mesmerising and inspiring and leaves little doubt in the viewer’s minds about the frightening impacts of climate change.


Earth Day’s 45th anniversary is the perfect time to start implementation of our national climate policy


According to Ambassador (retired) Shahid Kamal who is advisor to the CCRD, “Climate change is the single most important issue that we face as a global community. Climate change is expected to disproportionately impact developing countries like Pakistan, whose economies are closely tied to climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture, and which are already facing multiple stresses due to population growth, urbanisation, industrialisation, and globalisation.” He pointed out the urgent need to raise awareness amongst the general public about climate change, particularly the youth who will grow up to face the brunt of its impacts.

Pakistan’s National Climate Change Policy (NCCP), states the climate change threats to Pakistan clearly: “Increased variability of monsoons; recession of the Himalayan-Karakoram-Hindu Kush glaciers which will threaten water inflows into the Indus River; increased risks of floods and droughts; water-stressed and heat-stressed conditions in arid and semi-arid regions and threats to coastal areas due to sea level rise and increased cyclonic activity.”

By joining in with the Earth Day celebrations the newly established CCRD became part of a network that has spread to 192 countries — to broaden and mobilise the environmental movement worldwide. The film Chasing Ice was selected for Earth Day, as it is an award winning documentary that was released in 2012 but it has not been shown widely in Pakistan.

Before the screening of the film Kamal was invited by Pakistan Television for an hour-long programme focusing on Earth Day. The mainstream media in Pakistan is now finally focusing on the threat of climate change by increasing their coverage of the subject. Pakistan is particularly vulnerable to climate change given its unique geography that stretches from its glacier-covered mountains in the north to the fan shaped Indus Delta in the south. Due to climate change, the glaciers are slowly retreating while seawater intrusion is threatening the delta region.

In recent years there has also been an increase in extreme weather related events. Just this past weekend, the northwest of the country witnessed a freak storm described as a “mini-cyclone” by the Met Department, with wind speeds of over 110km per hour, which tore roofs of buildings and uprooted trees, killing at least 45 people and injuring more than 200. “My family had never experienced a storm of this intensity in their lifetime. Cyclones usually hit the coast, but this is Peshawar, located far inland and more than a 1,000km from the coast!” said 20-year-old Saad Khan, a resident of Peshawar studying in Islamabad. Scientists say that due to climate change, the intensity and frequency of such kind of storms will only increase.

After the screening of the film there was a tree plantation ceremony on campus and the chief guest, the new Minister of Climate Change, Mushaidullah Khan, planted an indigenous sapling of ‘Kachnar’ in the gardens of COMSATS University. In his view, “We need to focus on both the environment and sustainable development. Climate change is such a big issue, even bigger than terrorism, and we have to work together to address it.”

While Pakistan has not contributed to climate change globally with its negligible greenhouse gas emissions, it has made a bad situation worse by cutting its forests at an alarming rate. The minister explained: “We are one of the most highly deforested countries in the world; we need to make a force to counter deforestation and protect our remaining forests.” He also added that we need to plant more trees in Pakistan.

The minister, who was appointed in February this year, later chaired a meeting held by his ministry to start the implementation of the National Climate Change Policy. The NCCP was launched in 2013 but then it was shelved when the PML(N) came to power; now given all the increased threats the country is facing like flooding, droughts and violent storms, the government seems to finally be taking the issue seriously.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, May 3rd, 2015

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