ISLAMABAD: Members of a Senate committee on Friday criticised the government’s plans for establishing coal power plants in order to address the energy crisis.

Coal power plants are damaging the environment as they release harmful emissions, Federal Minister for Climate Change Senator Mushahid Ullah Khan told the Senate Committee on Climate Change, which met for a briefing on the steps taken by the government for mitigating the impact of climate change.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Senator Samina Saeed criticised the government’s plans for establishing coal power plants, particularly the one being set up near fertile agricultural land near Sahiwal.

“Coal power plants are a thing of the past. They emit harmful gasses into the environment. The power plant near Sahiwal will have extreme environmental consequences in the long term,” she said.

Pakistan’s global carbon footprint is expected to increase by four times if the proposed coal power plants are established. The Ministry of Climate Change has predicted that carbon emissions in Pakistan are likely to increase from 400 metric tons to more than 1,600 metric tons in the next decade.

According to the climate change minister, Pakistan is the least polluting country in the world and contributes only 0.8 pc global carbon emissions.

“However, Pakistan ranks among one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the impacts of climate change,” he said.

He said climate change is a provincial responsibility but the ministry will provide all necessary support. He said the most forest cover in the country is in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir.

“The forests in these areas are being cut for commercial purposes. It is the duty of the respective provinces to prevent forest degradation,” he said.

He told the committee that 12,000 tons of waste from Buffalo Colony in Karachi is being discharged into the sea and called on the Sindh government to look into the matter. He emphasised on the importance of raising awareness among the masses about climate change via the media.

It was decided during the meeting that a coordinating committee on climate change could be formed including parliamentarians for better coordination. Senators appreciated Mushahid Ullah Khan for his efforts to reduce climate change effects.

The committee was told that gender issues have also been given special importance in all the policies formed by the climate change ministry.

The committee was told the Glacier Lake Outbursts Floods was one of the first projects in its final phase of implementation which was initiated through the Green Climate Fund which focuses on the education and training of local communities especially women, children and senior citizens on how to respond and cope with emergency flood situations caused by glacier lake outbursts.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2017