INP
LAHORE
A high level delegation of SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) Pakistan chapter Thursday left for Dhaka-Bangladesh to participate in the upcoming SAARC one-day seminar on “A Climate Resilient South Asia: Turning Climate Smart Investment Opportunities into Reality” on July 15.
Talking to media here, leader of delegation SAARC CCI Senior Vice President (SVP) Iftikhar Ali Malik said that Pakistan has been working with SAARC member states to understand how public sector actors are building resilience to climate change in South Asia.
He said Pakistan remains committed to playing its role in global efforts for tackling the issue of climate change. He said we had ratified the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2015 and is following the principles therein to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent. “Climate change has become one of the biggest challenges for mankind today and has united the international community for action against its hazards,” he added. Pakistan had recently passed the climate law i.e. Pakistan Climate Change Act-2016 and Pakistan was fully aware of its national and international obligations under United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
He said extreme unhealthy temperatures in South Asia—a region that includes India, Pakistan and Bangladesh—affect around 15% of the region’s population. “A number of deadly extreme weather events in the region reflect that reality, including a 2015 heat wave that killed more than 2,500 people,” he added.
He said South Asia as a region has witnessed favourable economic growth and is gearing up to capitalise on opportunities provided by urbanisation, economic diversification and a young population. At the same time the region is also home to the world’s largest population of the poor and is extremely vulnerable to adverse impacts of climate change.
Malik further said Bangladesh and Pakistan have been assigned a global rank as high as 6 and 7 respectively in terms of risks associated with climate change, with related annual GDP losses of close to 0.7 per cent. But other countries in South Asia have not fared well either. Coping with fragile mountainous ecosystems is a challenge for Bhutan and Nepal, and addressing risks associated with low-lying coastal areas remains crucial for Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. India and Pakistan also face the challenge of sustaining agricultural production in drought prone arid and semi-arid regions.
He said droughts are recurrent in South Asia, and their impact on agriculture is enormous. In 2002-03, South Asia faced one of its worst droughts. In India alone, a drought has been reported at least once every three years in the last five decades resulted in financial losses of about $149 billion and approximately 350 million people have been affected by droughts in the past 10 years.
He said huge investments are being made to facilitate economic growth, poverty reduction and climate resilience in the region. However, uncertainty persists on how best to leverage resilience outcomes across policy areas whilst making such investments.
“Decision makers need to find approaches that are able to integrate climate change and development responses at scale,” he added.
Iftikhar Malik said SAARC member states should work with their respective private sector to encourage clean green business development for promoting climate action. “The encouragement of bringing in innovation and building capacity of relevant stakeholders should be the fundamental objectives of every government in South Asia,” he added.
