Environmental activists at a meeting underscored the need for creating awareness about negative impacts of climate change on the citizens’ lives and environment of urban centres.

Organised by the The Knowledge Forum (TKF) at the office of the National Commission for Human Rights, the meeting’s participants suggested having a close liaison between climate change activists, organisations, environmental protection agencies and other government agencies.

“People in the major cities like Karachi are facing heatwaves, delayed winters, while people suffer in Lahore and other cities of Punjab due to smog,” said urban planner Muhammed Toheed.

Adil Ayub of the Climate Action Pakistan pointed out that concerned citizens had organised Climate marches in major urban centres this year and in 2019 for creating awareness about climate change. “This year, the Climate March was held in the city last week, but the administration did not allow it to move from the Clifton beach to Bilawal Chowrangi,” he lamented.

Zahid Farooq from the Urban Resource Centre said the local government had allowed erecting concrete mountains in the form of high-rise buildings, causing heat waves in the city. He pointed out that all industrial and municipal waste was directly going into the sea without any treatment. There were three water treatment plants but all were non-functional, he lamented.

Mushtaq Gaadi from the TARA Foundation said people’s movement could create a major impact on the protection of the environment. He pointed out that it was a local people’s movement that raised the issue of environmental threats due to coal power projects in Tharparkar.

Aslam Mallah, a representative of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), said that due to coal mining and coal-fired power plants in the Thar region, people had started suffering displacement and diseases.

Irum Ayaz from the Pakistan Red Crescent Society, Ahmed Shabbar representing the Pak Maholiyat Tahafuz Movement, Director-General of the National Institute of Oceanography Dr Nuzhat Khan, researchers at LUMS Asad Farooque and Raphael Sotter, environmental journalists Basil Andrews and Mahmood Alam Khalid, and activists Samar Abbas, Chandan Malhi, Shujauddin Qureshi and Noman Peter also attended the meeting. Zeenia Shaukat, director of The Knowledge Forum, moderated the meeting.

Published in The News By Staff Reporter 23 December 2021