Dawn's editorial this morning calls on political parties to urgently tackle climate change and reminds them of their own, largely unmet, promises in regards to protecting the environment in their 2013 election manifestos.
The ecological crisis facing Pakistan is potentially unmitigated. One place to start course correction, as our editors point out, is at policy level:
Power for environmental management was devolved to the provinces under the 18th Amendment; that leaves little scope for the centre to lay down a minimum standard related to environmental factors.
As for unmet promises, data analyst Asim Bashir also evaluated for Dawn.com the claims made by the federal government in 2013 and where matters stood at the end of their term five years later.
As the editorial highlights as well, providing food security through wheat procurement from all farmers is one commitment the PML-N was unable to live up to. The visuals tell the story:
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