Pakistan approves first draft of national climate policy

After being struck by the most severe flooding in its history, Pakistan has formally approved the first draft of a national policy on climate change.

“Pakistan is among the few developing countries which have prepared such a comprehensive national policy on a subject which is on top of the global agenda,” said Qamaruzaman Chaudhary, former director general of the Pakistan Meteorological Department and lead author of the policy.

The draft has been accepted by the country’s environment ministry and is ready to be forwarded to the federal cabinet for approval.

It is the work of a Climate Change Task Force formed in 2008. Forty experts from a variety of fields consulted with federal and provincial agencies and other organizations to develop the policy.

Pakistan’s diverse ecosystems - which include coastline, desert, arid zones, mountains and glaciers - are in danger from a variety of threats, including climate change, population growth, lack of planning, and mismanagement of resources, experts say.

Almost 97 percent of Pakistan’s population lives in the Indus River basin, the country’s lifeline for agriculture and water.

A MOST VULNERABLE COUNTRY?

Pakistani experts believe the country should be considered one of the world’s most vulnerable to climate change. Data shows rising temperatures over much of the past century, and the country suffered record flooding last year.

“Particularly during the last two decades, extreme weather events like heavy rains, heat and droughts have increased,” Chaudhary said.

The pattern of extreme weather can be seen particularly in places like Thar, an arid region where drought now arrives every three years and may last for 12 months or more, in some cases triggering migration away from affected areas.

Jawed Ali Khan, director general at the Ministry of the Environment, said the government wants to integrate its approach to climate change with related policies.

Water resources, agriculture, human health, forestry and biodiversity are among the top priority sectors.

Chaudhary said he hopes the national action plan will be ready within the next few months.

The sense of urgency has been heightened by the extreme flooding endured by Pakistan in 2010. An abnormally strong monsoon led to up to one-fifth of the country being under water, displacing 20 million Pakistanis and causing up to 2,000 deaths.

The upper margin of the country is dotted with mountains and glaciers that are important water sources. However, flooding due in part to melting snow and glaciers is an indication of the growing effects of climate change, some Pakistani experts say. Further extreme monsoons could also occur in the future, they say.

“Increases in extreme weather events, melting of glaciers and rising temperatures in arid places are the top three challenges,” said Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal, head of the agriculture section at the Global Change Impact Studies Centre in Islamabad, which contributed to the draft policy. Iqbal said that temperature increases are reducing agricultural yields in arid zones.

Adil Najam, director of Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and one of the authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, sees the draft policy as a way to focus efforts.

“I think what the draft says is correct but may already have been said in a whole host of other policy documents. The challenge is to turn the general statements into specific targets and timetables,” said Najam.

Najam identified energy supply, agriculture and water as the priority areas that should be addressed in the context of climate change, with specific goals and targets for investment and improvement.