Rina Saeed Khan

Last week, just a day after the UN’s World Environment Day was celebrated, a unique planetary debate involving ordinary citizens discussing climate change and energy took place, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Called the World Wide Views on Climate and Energy, the event turned out to be the largest global citizen consultation held on climate change.

It took place in 79 countries of the world simultaneously including Pakistan — beginning at dawn in Fiji and ending at dusk in Arizona — where at least 100 citizens in each location discussed the issues of climate change and voted on an identical set of questions. The results from this voting were published immediately on http://climateandenergy.wwviews.org/results/, making it possible for everyone to follow the statements of ordinary citizens on the challenges confronting policy makers at COP21 (the Paris conference on climate change to be held later in December this year) — and to compare the views of citizens in different countries.

Five thematic sessions were disussed: the importance of tackling climate change, tools to tackle climate change, UN negotiations and national commitments, fairness and distribution of efforts and keeping climate promises. Prior to the meetings, all citizens received an information booklet on different climate and energy policies, targets and measures.

How far are the citizens of the world ready to go to tackle climate change?

In Islamabad, the consultation was inaugurated by the federal Minister for Climate Change, Mushaidullah Khan, at COMSATS University, Islamabad.

In Pakistan, since 60 per cent of our population comes under the “youth” category, most of the citizens invited to the debate in Islamabad were young students.

The citizens attended a daylong meeting, which was inaugurated in the morning by the Minister for Climate Change and the founder of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) Tariq Banuri. The planetary debate in Islamabad was organised jointly by SDPI and the Centre for Climate Research and Development (CCRD) with support from the Embassy of France. The input of the World Wide Views on Climate and Energy will go directly to COP21.

Abid Suleri, the head of SDPI who welcomed the guests and citizens described the debate as “learning from stakeholders and people” instead of following the earlier prescription development mode, which has clearly not delivered. “We will learn what people think of the climate change and the energy challenges facing the earth and how they can be solved,” he said while describing the process. “People’s voices are important as the ‘one size fits all’ approach can’t work,” he added.

Tariq Banuri who most recently worked with the UN at their headquarters in New York, gave a brief history of how human beings have destroyed ecosystems on Earth. “The Earth is 46 billion years old and if we scale it down to 46 years then we humans have been here four hours earlier and the Industrial Revolution began a minute ago and in the mean time we have destroyed more than 50 per cent of the world’s forests”, said Banuri. Life on the planet comes from energy from the sun, so the “Earth has to remain in balance” for life to continue.

Scientists and governments have agreed that a warming of more than two degrees Celsius will be dangerous but clearly any long-term increase in temperature is going to be harmful.

The climate crisis caused by increasing emissions of carbon dioxide is now endangering the entire planet. Scientists and governments have agreed that a warming of more than 2 degrees Celsius will be dangerous but clearly any long-term increase in temperature is going to be harmful. Since 1985, the number of climate disasters around the world has gone up.

“I believe the real target has to be zero increase,” stated Banuri. The result of global warming is that Pakistan is now facing more cyclones in the Arabian Sea, the number and intensity of floods in the country has increased and our ice packs in the high mountains are melting. If they melt completely, there will be huge impacts: famine, conflict and migration. Even our monsoon rains that sustain life in this region are becoming erratic so climate change is indeed a very serious issue. “It is as bad as someone pointing a gun to our head and we must do something about it”, he adds.

“Energy is what life is all about; all of life is the flow of energy … before the industrial revolution we depended on muscle and firewood, then came coal and petrol. One litre of petrol has the same energy as a human working for one month!” Fossil fuels have transformed our world, giving us more energy and the greater capacity to meet people’s needs but now they will destroy us so we have to make the switch to renewable energy. If we could harness the sun’s energy and use it effectively it would solve our problems.

According to Banuri, “The only answer is to go to renewable energy. It is the only solution.” It is a matter of cooperation and the world has to find a common solution. “The biggest obstacle is that solar and wind energy is currently too costly but that is going down”, he says. The need of the hour is for the world to invest in renewable energy and this must be brought to the table during the Paris conference.

The Minister for Climate Change, Mushaidullah Khan, spoke about the government’s recent launch of the Islamabad-Rawalpindi Metro bus service, pointing out that they are using energy efficient (Euro II) engines in the buses and it will save on fossil fuels. He also pointed out that the National Climate Change Policy is finally going to be implemented and that in recent budget, the government has announced interest free loans for solar tube wells, zero import duty on solar and wind power generation equipment and five-year tax holiday and zero sales tax on local manufacture of solar, wind power equipment. He also spoke about the importance of equity in the global climate change negotiations; that rich countries must do more to meet the challenge of climate change.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, June 14th, 2015

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