RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Every year around 54,000 Pakistani children die of diarrhea, the Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul Wazir expressed on Friday.

She resolved that Pakistan, as a great nation, had to battle with the dilemma of climate change and environmental degradation. The minister asked the citizens to plant trees in the metropolis to make it green, clean and beautiful.

She was speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the fifth international conference on ‘Environmental Horizon, Sounding the Alarm! Environment, Climate Change and Health’ held at Prof Salimuzzaman Siddiqui Auditorium, International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi on Friday.

The international event was jointly organised by the Karachi University’s Department of Chemistry, ICCBS, and the University’s Office of Research Innovation and Commercialization.

The ceremony was well attended and addressed by Special Secretary Health Dabeer A Khan, World Wide Fund for Nature Director General Pakistan Hammad Naqi Khan, ICCBS Director Prof Dr M Iqbal Chaudhry, Chairman Chemistry Department Prof Dr Majid Mumtaz, and two US delegates including Dr James Schauer. The chemistry event will conclude on Sunday.

The minister said her ministry was following the vision of PM Imran Khan to make the country green and beautiful. She regretted that untreated wastewater was being released to ocean. This issue needs immediate attention, she observed.

The minister stated that the students, listening to her in the auditorium, was her target audience, and said Pakistan had the largest part of youth in her population. She maintained that the nation needed to make her youth aware about the importance of forests and clean and green environment for human survival.

She appreciated the University for holding such a useful international conference. Meanwhile, Prof Iqbal Chaudhry pointed out that Pakistan was the seventh most vulnerable country to climate change. He said climate change and environmental degradation should be treated as a communal problem.

Quoting statistics issued by the international organizations, he said the country was suffering from many ecological challenges posing severe threats to human health and life.

In Pakistan environmental issues include deforestation, air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, climate change, pesticide misuse, soil erosion, natural disasters and desertification, Prof Chaudhry said.

Dabeer A Khan said the provincial government was fighting against various health issues and diseases which are directly associated with the environmental degradation and climate change.

Speaking on the issue, Hammad Naqi Khan said it was the right time for talking concrete measures to address environmental challenges in the country. He said deforestation, climate change and the reduction of freshwater resources were the major environmental issues in Pakistan which are adversely impacting the environment, health and economy of the country.