Sada-e-Watan
Sydney ™
sadaewatan@gmail.com
H.E. Babar Amin and Hon. Zartaj Gul
Pakistan's Federal Minister of State for Climate Change Hon. Zartaj Gul completed her official visit of Canberra Australia
The Federal Minister of State for
Climate Change Hon. Zartaj Gul visited Canberra from 8-10 April 2019 on
the invitation of the Government of Australia. She held meetings at the
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Department of Agriculture and
Water Resources, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
(CSIRO), Australian Renewable Energy Agency and with the officials of the ACT
Government. She also met Mr. Ewen McDonald, Head of the Office of Pacific and
former Developed Country Co-Chair of the Green Climate Fund and the Ambassador
for Environment, Mr. Patrick Suckling. The Minister also visited the Australian
National University.
Minister Zartaj Gul also led the Pakistani side at
the roundtable discussion on climate change, environment, renewable energy,
agriculture and water resources. She stated that several projects like the
‘billion tree Tsunami’ were initiated during the PTI’s Government in Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa. The Minister underscored that keeping in view the challenges posed
nationally, regionally and globally by climatic changes, the current Government
had taken several pioneering measures like ‘Clean and Green Pakistan’ and the
country-wide ‘Billion Tree Tsunami Initiative’.
She highlighted that
Pakistan was one of the lowest emitters of Green House Gases, both in per
capita (ranked 135th in the world) and total emissions (0.8% percent of the
global emissions) and was spending 5-7% of its budget annually on climate
related activities. Pakistan, however, remained highly vulnerable to the
adverse effects of climate change and was threatened in multiple ways,
inter-alia, through drought, desertification, glacial-melt, sea level rise and
recurrent droughts and floods.
The Minister mentioned that Pakistan had
manifested its commitment to Climate Change actions, time and again, through
its constructive role in the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the Amendment to
the Kyoto Protocol and during the negotiations to operationalize the Paris
Agreement. Pakistan expected that the pledges made by the developed countries
towards Climate Fund would be materialized.
Hon. Zartaj Gul stated that
Pakistan presented huge potential for joint ventures in climate adaptation and
mitigation technologies. She hoped that the two countries would benefit through
institutional cooperation and joint research in climate change, agriculture,
ocean and marine environment.
The Australian interlocutors briefed the
MoS on the technological developments and the management system introduced by
them to mitigate the adverse impact of climate change. They expressed interest
in cooperating further with Pakistan in the areas of climate change,
environment and ecology.
