ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has given go-ahead to newly-inducted Federal Minister for Climate Change, Mushahid Ullah Khan for the implementation of first Climate Change Policy and taking the provinces into confidence in this regard, The Nation has learnt.
The Climate Change Policy was in doldrums from the last three years due to lukewarm response by the provinces. Sources in the Ministry of Climate Change informed this scribe that the minister conveyed to the PM that the federal government alone could not deal with the challenges, and the provincial governments would have to join hands to educate the people regarding deleterious effects of climate change, badly affecting different sectors of the economy, particularly agriculture, water and health.
The minister assured the PM that he would play his role to address the challenges in collaboration with all provincial governments and to improve country's resilience against negative impacts of climate changes in shape of floods, heat wave, melting glaciers due to rise in temperature, deforestation, falling underground water level, desertification, erratic rain patterns and droughts.
The minister said that climate change is a reality, as its adverse impacts are more evident in shape of unpredictable rains, floods and cloudburst that lead to urban flooding. “However, we can no more ignore it.”
Sources said the PM was assured that the federal government would play its role for the implantation of policy. The minister said he will also convince the provincial heads on the important issue.
The PM advised the minister to take into confidence all the provincials departments concerned.
The Climate Change Policy was approved in September 2012, but could not be implemented due to lake of coordination between Climate Change Division and provinces in this regard. The provinces expressed reservations on the policy while the federal government took not steps to take the provinces into confidence in this connection.