PESHAWAR
The provincial minister for higher education Kamran Bangash said on Tuesday that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was the first province to formulate and devise its climate change policy in 2017.
He said the provincial government has taken policy level steps to combat the challenges posed by the climatic changes to its ecosystems, adding that bold actions have been devised in the recently implemented policy to address the challenges of environmental degradation in the province.
He expressed these views in his speech at a one-day conference on the topic of “Climate Change Impacts on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Water Reservoirs” in University of Peshawar (UoP).
Minister for Higher Education Kamran Bangash said that the KP government has implemented an updated climate change policy while after the recent devastating floods, the government implemented the River Act 2022.
Mr Kamran added that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has taken the issue of climate change very seriously and steps to address its emerging challenges.
He maintained that the PTI government has launched clean water supply projects including curbing timber mafia and poaching. He said that one billion trees have been successfully planted in KP and as a first province adopted a climate change action plan.
In the conference organized by Pakistan Red Crescent Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, students, academia and other relevant officials also participated.
Talking about the situation of water reservoirs in the province, Kamran Bangash said that the water level in KP is going down very fast, adding that tanks are being installed in the urban areas of Peshawar to make water safe.
He said that after 1960, Imran Khan was the first leader in the country who raised the issue and openly talked about building new dams.
Imran Khan has defined the decade till 2020-30 as building dams, he added.
