Pakistan Observer
Published Date: Apr 18, 2015
A sustainable, resilient world needed in climate change scenario
Saturday, April 18, 2015 – Islamabad—Prof. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the Vice-Chairman of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has said that climate change affects livelihood, water resources, food security besides causing poverty, migration and coastal flooding.
He was delivering a special lecture on ‘Challenges and Opportunities of Climate Change’, here under the auspices of Sustainable development Policy Institute and Embassy of the Belgium on Friday at local hotel.
Prof Jean-Pascal said change in climate can be observed through the warming of hot days and heat waves, and intensity of the precipitation. “A small amount of warming is observed, however, its impacts are immense, which shows that if warming increases, the impact will be more severe.
He said more rainfall is likely over northern parts of South Asia, especially Bangladesh and Sri Lanka with a weak decrease over Pakistan.
He maintained that there are many opportunities to integration, mitigation, and adaptation, and through these approaches, we can limit climate change and build more sustainable and resilient world.
He further said together with lifestyle and behavior changes, known technologies and policies, including more efficient use of energy and greater use of low carbon can reduce GHG emissions at reasonable costs.
Mitigation can result in benefiting human health, he said, adding that humanity has to make two choices to create different outcomes with substantial mitigation and adaptation measures.
Malik Amin Aslam Khan, Global Vice President of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said Pakistan is contributing only 0.5% of global GHGs. “We are one of the most vulnerable countries being affected by climate change,” he said. Discussing the country’s geography and topography, he said glacier melting zone are affecting the country both in terms of more and less water. Anything that happens in the north affects the south.
“Glaciers in Pakistan are shrinking, store house is reducing. Potentially dangerous lakes like Hunza are at serious risk of natural disasters, because our infrastructure is sensitive.
Source: http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=262275