KARACHI: The provincial government has formulated its ‘Climate Change Policy-2022’ to support the global efforts in combating climate change.

While presiding over the Sindh cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah underlined the need for a climate change policy and said that the province’s vulnerability to climate change could be assessed from increasing incidence of drought, water insecurity, increasing intensity of heatwaves and increasing levels of air pollution.

The cabinet was told that water insecurity was resulting in decreased crop yields and increasing intensity and frequency of heatwaves resulting in decreasing agricultural production and adverse effects on health, while increasing sea level was resulting salinity and sea intrusion in deltaic region.

The cabinet was told that the major objectives of the policy were to identify the effects of climate change, provide solutions and implement framework/plans to mitigate its effects, in line with the National Climate Change Policy.

Cloud first policy

The IT department informed the cabinet meeting that the absence of cloud policy compelled public sector organisations to work in silo and caused inefficient use of resources utilisation, security issues, increased capital costs and infrastructure degradation.

The cabinet was informed that the salient features of the Cloud First Approach included economic scale, collaboration among federation and provinces, standardisation and adoption of emerging tools and technologies.

The cloud policy is a paradigm shift from capital expenditure to operational expenditure resulting in cost savings with better infrastructure.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2022