PM: Govt remains dedicated to addressing environment/climate change challenges
News Desk:
Prime Minister, Imran Khan on Thursday said the present government remains dedicated to addressing environment/ climate change challenges in the country. Speaking at a function at Haripur, the Premier stated that the 10bs Tsunami program was actually launched in 2013 by the then Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.
He said Pakistan will be hosting World Environment Day on June 5. “This is a great honor and acknowledgment of the fact that Pakistan is among a handful of countries trying to reduce the impact of climate change and global warming.
“We are not doing this for show. We are doing this so that we can leave behind a better country for our future generations. The biggest impact of climate change is that it will affect our future generation.”
The premier said Pakistan was among the top ten countries most at risk from climate change. “The water in our rivers comes from glaciers. And if the rate at which they are melting continues, we will have to face many issues.”
This is also the situation in India, he said, adding that the Ganges River also depended on glaciers.
“So through our efforts, we are trying to slow down the impact of climate change, and we want to leave behind a country for our future generations the way it was when I was growing up.”
The Pakistan I grew up in had a lot of forest cover and wildlife while the cities were also manageable, he said. “With time, we caused harm to our cities due to a lack of long-term thinking.”
PM Imran said when he first visited Singapore, the river was like a sewerage drain. “Now if you look at it, the river has fish. They have cleaned it up. So it can be reversed. This is what we are trying to do […] we are trying to restore our environment and wetlands.”
