ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Climate Change Senator Mushahidullah Khan on Wednesday said that mainstreaming climate change into country’s development agenda is necessary to protect Pakistan from fallouts of disasters.

“There is a pressing need for making climate change concern an integral part of socio-economic development policies and action plans, if we want to boost the country’s climate resilience against intensifying impacts of climate change, particularly recurring droughts and floods, shifting and reducing rainfall patterns, glacial melt, depleting river flows and sea-level rise,” the Minister said in a briefing to media persons.

He was responding to a recent Climate Change Profile of Pakistan report published by the Asian Development Bank.

Mushahidullah Khan said the role of policymakers and planners was critical in this regard and urged them to keep themselves abreast of shifting global, regional and national climate change patterns and possible adaptation and mitigation measures being adopted by other nations.

The ADB report says that over last five decades the annual average temperature in Pakistan has increased by roughly 0.5 degrees centigrade, with the number of heat wave days per year increased nearly five-fold in the last three decades.

Besides, annual precipitation has historically shown high variability, but has slightly increased in the last 50 years.

Sea level along the Karachi coast has risen approximately ten centimeters in the last century, devouring thousands of hectares of coastal lands, according to the Asian Development Bank’s report.

The report further warns that the annual mean temperature in Pakistan was expected to rise by 3 degrees centigrade to 5 degrees centigrade.

Predicting the future scenario of the sea-level rise, the report says the sea-level will go up by a further 60 centimeters by the end of the century and affect the low-lying coastal areas south of Karachi toward Keti Bander and the Indus River delta.

Referring to the report findings, the climate change minister highlighted climatic changes were potentially to bear various negative effects on the country’s farm productivity, water availability, increase coastal erosion and seawater incursion and frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.

“Coping with climate risks through adaptation and mitigation efforts - particularly in the agriculture, water, energy and health sectors - is now inevitable for the country, which can be achieved only through well-coordinated efforts and programmes by federal ministries, provincial and district departments,” Mushahidullah Khan said.

Identifying possible climate change adaptation solutions and their adoption in the country, he said, “Policy at relevant government departments should play their roles and work in consultation with non-governmental policy organisations, research institutions and academia for promoting drought, heat and flood-resilient crop varieties among farmers.”

The minister believed that modernizing irrigation infrastructure network and adopting water-saving technologies like drip and sprinkler technologies, integrated watershed management, reforestation of catchment, flood-prone, coastal and riverine areas and building more water reservoirs, diversification of energy mix including investment in renewable and hydropower projects of varying sizes and modernization of weather forecasting and warning systems are all vital.

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2017