Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday told the United Nations’ climate change summit that Pakistan eyes proudcing 60% of its energy from clean sources by 2030.
Addressing the summit, the premier said that 30% of all the country’s vehicles will run on electricity in the near future. “I assure you that Pakistan will be doing its best to make its contribution to mitigate the effects of climate change,” the premier said.
“Pakistan is the country whose contribution to global emission is less than 1%, yet and sadly, we are the fifth most vulnerable country to climate change,” PM Imran Khan said.
The prime minister, explaining what Pakistan had decided to do about climate change, said that the country has decided to opt for “nature-based solutions” to mitigate the effects.
First, Pakistan will plant 10 billion trees in the next three years. Secondly, we have increased the number of national parks and protected areas from 30 to 45.
At the same time, we have decided that we will not have power based on coal. “We have already scrapped two coal power projects that were supposed to produce 2,600MW energy.”
The premier apprised the forum that Pakistan had replaced the project through hydroelectricity.
As far as Pakistan’s indigenous coal goes, the premier said the country had decided to produce energy, either by coal to liquid or coal to gas so that coal does not burn to generate power.
He said that his government has decided to have nature-based solution to mitigate the effects of climate change, adding that Pakistan has planned to plant 10 billion trees in the next three year.
Apart from PM Imran who was the 7th speaker, co-conveners UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as China’s President Xi Jinping, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte , Chilean President Sebastian Pinera and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are scheduled to address the summit.
AFP adds: UN chief Antonio Guterres on Saturday urged world leaders to declare a “state of climate emergency” and shape greener growth after the coronavirus pandemic, as he opened a summit marking five years since the landmark Paris Agreement.
The Climate Ambition Summit, being held online, comes as the United Nations warns current commitments to tackle rises in global temperatures are inadequate. The commitments made in Paris in 2015 were “far from enough” to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the UN secretary-general said in his opening address to the summit, which is co-hosted by Britain and France. “If we don’t change course, we may be headed for a catastrophic temperature rise of more than 3.0 degrees this century,” he said.
