Pakistan, on this World Environment Day on June 5, has been honoured to host a virtual global moot in partnership with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Besides Pakistan’s premier, the conference will also be graced by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, Pope Francis and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Slated to start in Islamabad on the night of June 4, this conference has a special significance as a prelude to the United Nation’s flagship quinquennial climate summit set to open in Glasgow on November 21. This is the first ever opportunity for Pakistan to lead this global gala and also a rare coincidence to follow China, its friendly northern global titan who presided over it last year. Pakistan’s participation in this conference is also quite crucial in the context that it was not invited to the summit of forty world leaders convened by Joe Biden, the new President of the United States on April 22, to reaffirm the USA’s return to the UN climate protocol and revive its contribution to the UN Green Global Funds to galvanise global efforts to avert the environmental apocalypse. The theme this time will be ‘ecosystem restoration’ and focus on resetting the country’s relationship with nature.
Rising to the occasion, Pakistan will also recount some of its steps taken or envisaged to mitigate the effects of climate change, highlighting its 10-Billion Tree Tsunami track, Clean Green Pakistan, the Electric Vehicle Policy, national parks and green jobs. The day would also witness a mega environmental splash in Islamabad and other capital cities. Yet underlying all this furore and festivities, are the stark realities of ravages of the environment and the exigency of a far greater resolve, resources and more effective strategies to combat pollution, erosion and protecting the ecosystem. The pain and ordeals ranging from the dense suffocating smokes and smog worsening in winter are exacerbated by the fact that Pakistan is ranked as the second most polluted country in the world. Besides the common deleterious gases, its air also has a higher concentration of the fine particulate matter that can impact lungs and heart and raise the child mortality rate. Air quality is impaired by vehicles, coal combustion and industrial emissions including from brick kilns, burning of solid waste, crop residues and dust from roads and construction sites. Even the noise levels in many cities soar far above the maximum 70db limit stipulated by WHO standards to ward off irritation and painful disturbance.
The air gases and residues entering the rains, water sources and streams aggravate the water pollution that has been found to cause about 30 percent of all diseases and 40 percent of all deaths in Pakistan. Water is also polluted by industrial, municipal wastes, fossil fuel combustion, agrochemicals like fertilisers, pesticides, marine dumping, maritime wastes from containers, cargoes, fishing boats, plastics and accidental spills and seepage from petrochemicals. The perils of water pollution in Pakistan, already stuck with a severe scarcity of water, are quite alarming. Three-fourths of its population has no access to safe drinking water supplies. Even the quality of our water lags behind 79 other countries. Its scarcity and abysmal quality also affect the health of our livestock, contents and comparative yields of the crops and extent of forest cover, land erosion, lack of wildlife and biodiversity of vegetation and animal world. Loss of forest cover or deforestation actually spawns a series of several other serious consequences for climate change and ecological balance. It has become an exceptionally grave concern because in contrast to a 33 percent forest cover required for a sustainable state of a region and its environment, Pakistan has less than even 5 percent of its area under the trees.
Even more appalling is the fact that the dread of deforestation like many of other processes and pollutants including the greenhouse gases worsening the weather and climate are not merely confined to the political and geographical boundaries but can transcend far beyond them through rains, winds, clouds and storms, rendering the environmental hazards as a shared global concern. Some research last year, for instance, revealed how the traces of several malignant chlorine pesticides originating from the USA and Russia were detected on the surfaces of some highly elevated glaciers atop the arctic regions. The residents around these remote pristine Norwegian Svalbard region as well as the rare mammals and the predators like polar bears around them thus are exposed to these highly toxic, long-lasting and non-degradable chemicals sprayed in lands far away from their sanctuaries. Daunting similarly, is the dilemma about the adverse environmental aspects of other emerging lifestyles and products like the micro and nanoparticles released even from tea bags as well as from tyres of vehicles plying the roads, wreaking havoc on humans, fish and other aquatic species. Just steeping a tea bag has been found to release over ten billion nanoparticles.
Another more critical aspect of such findings is that many developing countries and regions lack the expertise, equipment and the requisite resources to explore such newly emerging hazards. This evidently necessitates a greater interaction and collaboration among the advanced and the developing world, mandating much more meaningful global cooperation to sustain a symbiotic relation between emerging technologies, fast-changing life patterns, pursuits and the environment. Thus the event for Pakistan is also an opportunity to emphasise its problems, grasp and seek global techniques, trends, research, strategies and assistance most suited to ensure a sustainable environment.