Pakistan meets foremost Climate Action sustainable development goal 10 years before 2030 deadline

ISLAMABAD – Ranked as the most climate-vulnerable country, Pakistan has crossed a crucial milestone by achieving an overarching Sustainable Development Goal – 13 ‘Climate Action’ much before the deadline, shows United Nations annual Sustainable Development Report 2020, launched recently.

The Sustainable Development Report (formerly the SDG Index & Dashboards) is an annual global assessment of countries’ progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. It is a complement to the official SDG indicators and the voluntary national reviews.

“It is indeed a landmark achievement for the country to have achieved the crucial sustainable development goal 13 ‘Climate Action’ well 10 years before deadline of 2030 for the implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals,” Malik Amin Aslam, Advisor to Prime Minister on Climate Change, said.

“With achieving the Climate Action SDG 13, Pakistan has demonstrated itself a country seriously committed to global efforts aimed to tackle the challenge of climate change,” he maintained.

 Pointing towards various measures taken by the present government and under the unwavering patronage of Prime Minister Imran Khan, Malik Amin Aslam said that adoption and implementation of different low carbon growth trajectory, mitigation and adaptation initiatives in fact paved the way for the country to achieve the UN’s Climate Action Goal 13 that too 10 years before expiry of the SDGs.

 Spelling out details of the initiatives, Amin Aslam said that the some of the such leading initiatives taken by the present government include 10 Billion Tree Tsunami Programme, Clean Green Pakistan Initiative, Clean Green Pakistan Index, Protected Areas Initiative, Eco-system Restoration Fund for facilitating the transition towards environmentally-resilient Pakistan by mainstreaming adaptation and mitigation through ecologically-targeted initiatives such as afforestation, biodiversity conservation, enhancing policy environment in consistent with the objectives of Pakistan’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and attaining Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN). 

Launched and adopted by all United States member countries in September 2015, the UN-led 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the roadmap to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. 

To be achieved by 2030, they aim to address the global challenges including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, health, education, water, sanitation, food security, peace and justice. 

Being intrinsically linked to all 16 of the other SDGs of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the SDG13 calls for urgent action by all UN member countries to combat climate change and its impacts to protect the life on planet earth from fallouts of the climate change.

In its annual latest climate risk index 2020, Germanwatch a sustainable development advocacy group, ranked Pakistan in its long-term ranking (199902918) fifth among the countries most-affected by extreme weather events.     

According to German Watch Index, Pakistan has been ranked globally in the top ten countries most affected by climate change in the past 20 years owing to its geographical location. According to the Global Climate Risk Index annual report for 2020,

The prime minister’s advisor Malik Amin Aslam said that in view of economic damages estimated at $3.8 million in the Germanwatch Index 2020, Pakistan has been ranked number three in the long-term assessment over a 20-year period (1999-2028).

“This means that the our economy is at peril from climate catastrophes and this is not alone an environmental challenge but also an issue affecting our economy, human health, agriculture and ecosystem,” he elaborated.

The government being cognizant of the situation has taken a raft of measures at policy, management and operational levels to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on the country, said the advisor Malik Amin Aslam

 The PM’s advisor Malik Amin Aslam said that climate crisis is now affecting every country and Pakistan is no exception in terms of impacts of the crisis and heightened vulnerability to it. It is disrupting not only national economies and affecting lives and livelihoods of people and countries dearly today and even more tomorrow.

Because of the soaring climate altering carbon emissions globally, people and communities are experiencing the significant impacts of human caused-climate change including rapidly changing weather patterns, rising sea level, heatwaves, droughts, expanding desertification, forest fires, cyclones, unseasonal rains and torrential floods.

Being now carbon emissions at their highest levels in the human history and still rising, the world’s average surface temperature is projected to rise over the 21st century unless serious actions to contain them are taken.

Affordable mitigation and affordable solutions now exit and need to be adopted and scaled up to enable countries to leapfrog to cleaner, more resilient economies. Turning to renewable energy and a range of other measures that will reduce emissions and increase adaptation efforts is a key way forward as a part of viable climate action.

Referring to the Paris Climate Agreement adopted by the UN member countries on 12 December 2015, he said that the climate pact offers a great opportunity to collaborate and cooperate in every possible manner to work towards its implementation through climate actions that will reduce emissions and build climate resilience and prove instrumental for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals,

However, through education, innovation and adherence to our global climate commitments, we can make the necessary changes together to protect the planet. These changes will also provide huge opportunities to modernise our infrastructure, which will give new stimulus to green growth, create green jobs and promote greater prosperity across the globe,” Malik Amin Aslam emphasised.