Pakistan committed to challenges of climate change: PM

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Monday said that Pakistan was fully cognizant of its commitment towards the challenges of environment and was effectively dealing with the phenomenon of greenhouse effect.

Addressing at the Science Policy Conference on Climate Change, the Prime Minister said Pakistan had only one percent of the greenhouse footprint.

Prime Minister Abbasi said Pakistan had a National Environment Policy and had also allocated eight percent of its budget to fight the effects of climate change.

He said Pakistan had ratified the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2015 and was following the principles therein to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent.

The Prime Minister said climate change had become one of the biggest challenge for mankind and had united all international community at one platform for action against its hazards.

He mentioned the recent prevalence of smog in the country and said it should serve as an eye-opener to be more serious about the issue of environment.

He said Pakistan had a zero import of furnace oil and was running the related power houses on imported liquefied natural gas.

He expressed confidence that in near future, all the furnace oil-based power plants of the country would no longer be running on furnace oil, adding that Pakistan was already utilizing the Euro-II diesel.