KARACHI, March 6: Experts on environmental issues, economists and social scientists here on Thursday called for reconciliation of the needs of the developed and the developing countries which were equally faced with the global environmental troubles due to the rapid population growth, technological progress, urbanisation and industrialisation.

Speaking at an international workshop at Karachi University, they said all environmental conflicts’ resolution processes should be based on the criteria to satisfy all sides, otherwise the issues could turn into deadly conflicts.

The four-day workshop on ‘Global environmental conflicts; changes and adaptation’, was jointly organised by the Area Study Centre for Europe (ASCE) and the Institute of Environmental Studies (IES) of the University of Karachi, the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and the Venice International University (VIU), Italy.

The vice-chancellor of Karachi University, Dr Pirzada Qasim, said that though the countries of the world had made significant progress towards protection, welfare and honourable survival of their respective population, they had jeopardised the natural resources and also impaired the ecosystem both locally and globally. In Pakistan, too, environmental issues needed to be taken up properly.

“It is a pity that even in a megacity like Karachi the provision of safe drinking water and disposal of domestic and industrial wastes remains a problem,” he said.

“In our case, it may be said that the management of environment is absolutely inadequate and non-satisfactory and among other things there is still a need to educate the masses and create awareness among them and a realisation within the policy makers and executers for sustainable development,” he said.

KU’s pro-vice chancellor Dr Akhlaq Ahmad said the causes contributing to environmental degradation included over-consumption of resources by many countries, rapid population growth, increasingly sophisticated chemical products or by-products having unanticipated toxic effects, deforestation, climate changes and massive use of fossil fuel in transport.

He said a brief examination of environmental problems exposed the rifts between those who addressed the problems and as such conflicts were seldom resolved to the satisfaction of all sides.

“Though seldom reducible to two opposing, unified camps, the players involved generally fall into two broad categories: the first includes those whose first priority is economic growth, and the second includes the diverse groups often squabbling among them, yet united by a commitment to environmental integrity and opposed to the more powerful economic camp,” Dr Ahmad noted.

He said to start with and facilitating an environmental conflict it was pertinent that those who wished to transform complex and adversarial environmental conflicts must involve all parties in as inclusive manner as possible.

ASCE Director Naveed Ahmad Tahir said the blame for the pollution that had also caused the climate change had been pinned on the unsustainable consumption patterns in the rich industrialised countries and it had been noted occasionally that the time had now come for them to repay their ecological debt to the poorer sections of the world’s population, which were badly affected by the impact of climate change and the degradation of the environment.