ISLAMABAD - A three-member delegation led by the China’s Ambassa-dor to Pakistan Nong Rong Monday called on the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Climate Change Ma-lik Amin Aslam and discussed various matters of mutual interest including environmental sustainability, cli-mate resilience and renewable energy.
“We have discussed in detail various matters for en-hanced bilateral cooperation and opportunities per-taining to the fields of post-Covid-19 green economic recovery in Pakistan by enhancing investment in na-ture-based solutions and green job creations, environ-mental sustainability, climate resilience, fore¬¬st management, air pollution, water conservation and dis-aster risk reduction,” Malik Amin Aslam said.
Meanwhile, China’s ambassador said that his government is also committed to extend support to the green vi-sion of Prime Imran Khan and his remarkable green ini-tiatives including the Green Stimulus, a post-COVID-19 green recovery initiatives for restoring people’s lives and livelihood affected by the pandemic, accord-ing to a news release issued here.
The ambassador told PM’s aide Malik Amin Aslam that it’s heartening that Prime Minister’s Imran Khan’s vi-sion for green Pakistan is perfectly aligned to the Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vision for green China.
“However, we as a Chinese government see a huge scope and opportunities of working jointly to promote the common green vision for enhanced environmental sus-tainability and climate resilience against various ad-verse impacts of climate change on water, energy, food, health and education sectors,” the ambassador said.
Both sides also agreed to make China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) a model green belt and road initiative by calling it China-Pakistan Green Economic Corridor, so that environment is taken care of while implement-ing the game-changer project of regional connectivity and economic development.
Malik Amin Aslam informed the ambassador that an ambi-tious Protected Areas Initiative, approved by the Prime Minister, has been already launched under the umbrella programme ‘Clean Green Pakistan’, which is the present government’s historic milestone for nature conservation and promotion of nature-based solutions and creation of green jobs in the country.
It aims to expand the country’s protected areas cover from 13 percent to more than15 percent by 2023 and create 5,000 green jobs across the country that are viewed as crucial in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, while at the same time safeguarding the country’s natural re-sources.
While sharing more details of the green and clean Pa-kistan initiatives launched under the Prime Minister’s Imran Khan’s vision for Clean and Green Pakistan, Ma-lik Amin Aslam told the Chinese envoy that the climate change ministry has kicked-off several flagship pro-grammes and projects including the world’s largest af-forestation programme of 10 Billion Tree Tsunami Pro-gramme, Clean Green Pakistan Programme, Protected Are-as Initiative, Plastic-Free Pakistan Initiative, Re-charge Pakistan Initiative as a part of the country’s efforts to achieve environmental sustainability and climate resilience through conservation and protection of environment, forests and wildlife, wherein communi-ty and youth engagements are being assigned the top priority.
The Chinese envoy appreciated the present government’s green and clean initiatives, ambitious 10 Billion Tsu-nami Programme, protection and conservation programmes of environment, wildlife and Pakistan recharge pro-gramme for enhancing country’s resilience against del-eterious fallouts of climate change on water, energy, agriculture, food security, energy, health, education and lives and livelihoods of the vulnerable rural and mountain communities.
China’s ambassador Nong Rong remarked that Pakistan’s green and clean initiatives are truly inspiring initi-ated despite tight economic conditions.
“It’s really incredible and inspiring that despite limited financial resources, Pakistan has launched world-acclaimed green stimulus initiative, which has led to creation of thousands of green jobs for those rendered unemployed due to COVID-19 pandemic,” the the ambassador stressed during the meeting with PM’s aide Malik Amin.
He told the PM’s aide that the Chinese government, however, would deploy its financial, technological and knowledge resources to support Pakistan through its experiences in overall COVID-19 crisis management and post COVID-19 green recovery through enhanced invest-ment in green sectors including forestry environmental protection and climate change resilience through miti-gation and adaptation initiatives in the country’s climate-vulnerable socio-economic sectors.
Malik Amin Aslam also told the ambassador that he ap-preciates the Chinese government’s interest and its offer to extend support to the green and clean initia-tives launched under the Prime Minister Imran Khan vi-sion for clean and green Pakistan under the 10 Bil-lion Tree Tsunami Programme for overall environmental conservation and protection and Pakistan’s climate re-silience building.
“It’s, of course, our pleasure to hear that the Chi-nese government is looking towards opportunities for jointly working and sharing its experiences regarding promotion of clean and renewable energy, environmental conservation, air pollution mitigation, climate change mitigation and adaptation, efficient water management and disaster risk reduction,” Malik Amin emphasised.
He remarked that the world today has been forced to accept that it is the destruction of wildlife habitats as well as the degradation of the world’s ecosystems that are the root cause of the pandemic — COVID-19.
“However, this ongoing catastrophe is painfully re-minding us that collectively we no longer have a choice but to take care of the natural limits and boundaries of our coexistence with other species. Na-ture, while reclaiming lost space, seems to be re-balancing our relationship with it,” he highlighted.