Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Pakistan has received US$ 150 million grants from global donor agencies for its five different projects aiming to mitigate climate change risks in the region. Advisor to Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam at a press conference here on Thursday said in the past one year ‘we managed to get a US$ 35 million funding for Climate Smart Agriculture project, glacial lake outburst flooding (GLOF-II) mitigating project got US$ 40 million, Zero Emission Metro for Karachi received US$ 35 million grant’.
He said the funding for the last two projects was in the pipeline namely the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) bank of Germany pledged US$ 12 million for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (KP) Billion Tree Tsunami (BTT) project and French Bank to give US$ 8 million where alongwith Agha Khan Foundation it would develop 8 tourism sites in Gilgit Baltistan to promote eco-tourism. Amin said the Ministry of Climate Change had conducted a scientific research aimed at studying the impact of climate change in the country which had a detailed outlook of all the provinces. ‘The temperature of Pakistan due to global warming and if nothing done in the coming 40 years then its temperature will increase 1C more than the world which is quite alarming,’ he warned.
He informed that Pakistan was the seventh most vulnerable country facing the serious impacts of climate change. ‘The first step taken in this regard is 10 Billion Tree Tsunami (10BTT) under the Prime Minister Imran Khan’s vision. Seven different plans have been received from all of the provinces where all arrangements have been lined up to implement the project,’ he added. ‘The climate change risks faced by the country are higher as its 70 percent area is threatened to become desert if nothing critical done. If well-thought in time plans are implemented then Pakistan has the opportunity to turn 50 percent area into forests.Our government has decided to make the country green with forests,’ he maintained.
The Advisor said BTT in KP was globally recognized by key environmental institutions and agencies. United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) endorsed the BTT plantation targets in its recent report launched here.
