Each year, on April 22, Earth Day is dedicated to honouring the planet and across the world, people have been celebrating this day since the 1970s. This year, Kuch Khaas, a non-profit social enterprise, organised an Earth Day event in Islamabad for the capital’s young schoolchildren, who participated in parades, debates, poetry recitations, poster competitions, and environmental science projects highlighting recycling, protecting trees and animals, preventing pollution and promoting renewable energy. It is this generation that is going to witness the impact of climate change as they grow up so it is integral that they become aware about the need to protect the planet.

This year, Earth Day was also chosen as the date for more than 170 governments of the world to sign the Paris Agreement in New York. Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, had invited all the world leaders to sign the historic Paris Agreement at the UN headquarters. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan signed the agreement on behalf of Pakistan and told the international community that Pakistan is strengthening its institutional structures to step up action to address climate change.

Pakistan of course ranks high among countries most affected by climate change. Our agricultural economy now faces larger risks from erratic monsoon rains, floods and extended droughts. Climate change is finally being recognised as one of the biggest challenges for the country. It is now being highlighted in the media and is frequently discussed in parliament.

Some provinces are taking the lead in addressing the challenge — the Khyber Pakhtunkwa province has launched the Billion Tree Tsunami to plant new trees and protect existing forests, which are considered carbon sinks. To match the popularity of PTI’s Billion Tree Afforestation Project in KP, the federal government recently launched the ‘Green Pakistan Programme’, whereby over 100 million trees are to be planted across the country.

Celebrating Earth day is not enough, Pakistan needs to pull its act together before the next climate change conference in December

The Punjab government has also built the 100 MW Quaid-i-Azam solar park, the first mega solar project in the country, which is now being expanded to provide 1000 MW of renewable solar energy to the national grid. Pakistan also has mega hydropower in the form of Mangla and Tarbela Dams, which provide clean energy. Hydropower currently provides almost 11pc of Pakistan’s energy mix and more hydropower projects are being developed in the country’s mountainous north including small hydel plants.

At the same time, Pakistan is also investing in polluting coal power projects that are to be built as part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor. They are now facing growing opposition, as they should, because coal is the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. Although Pakistan’s current carbon emissions are negligible, as a responsible member of the international community that has now signed the Paris Agreement the country has to do its share as the world transitions to low carbon pathways. At any rate, coal is going to become more expensive as the Paris Agreement comes into effect. The burning of coal accounts for nearly 50pc of global energy related carbon emissions and is one of the main drivers of climate change.

The Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to 1.5°C We have already reached one degree of warming — and are experiencing climate change in extreme wildfires, record heatwaves, crippling typhoons, devastating droughts, and thick air pollution in our cities. Imagine what will happen if we ever reach teo degrees of warming. Scientists say that South Asia will be the region most impacted by global warming, due to more extreme weather events such as floods and droughts. They also say that we have to act now before it is too late.

The US and China, the world’s biggest polluters have already indicated that they will be ratifying the Paris Agreement by the end of the year, after signing it in New York. About 15 nations, mainly small island states, have already ratified the agreement. UN climate chief Christiana Figueres explained what needed to happen after the signing in New York. “Most countries, though not all, need to take the signed document and go back home and go through ratification procedures that in most countries requires parliamentary discussion and decision.”

Pakistan still has to ratify the Paris Agreement. It also has to revise its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) document, which all countries had to submit before the Paris Summit in December 2015, detailing how much carbon they were willing to cut. Pakistan submitted a weak, one page document. “Pakistan has to first conduct a study on what are the current levels of emissions, then see how much they will grow under CPEC and highlight how to reduce these emissions in various sectors”, explains Bilal Anwar, a climate expert currently working for the Centre for Climate Research and Development at Comsats University in Islamabad. “We didn’t submit a meaningful INDC before the Paris conference and so were left out – other countries came well prepared”.

Pakistan now has to prepare a more detailed INDC document before the next climate conference to be held in Marrakesh this December in order for it to play a significant role in the negotiations and to claim climate funds in the near future. “It is also important for Pakistan to have local entities like the National Rural Support Programme and Akhuwat Foundation accredited by the Green Climate Fund, the international fund which is giving out climate finance,” says Anwar. The Green Climate Fund currently has $14bn (which is going to increase) to give out to developing countries to address climate change. “The Green Climate Fund has already started funding projects across the world and we need to start developing our capacity and designing projects in line with the fund,” he says.

If countries do not make deep emissions cuts by 2020, they will miss their chance to meet the Paris goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C, say activists like Greenpeace. The Paris Agreement is the most important climate agreement ever made and we can only hope that it succeeds so that the younger generation can live safely on the planet without worrying about devastating floods, storms and rising sea levels.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine May 1st, 2016