Sherry Rehman urges stakeholders to incentivise EV buyers to overcome climate change impacts

Senator and Chairperson, Standing Committee on Climate Change, Sherry Rehman warned Saturday that transport-born pollution might double over the next 10-year in Pakistan, stressing upon the stakeholders to incentivize the electric vehicle (EV) buyers and users to overcome the rising challenges of climate change in the country.

“The number of motor vehicles in use is going to double over the next 10 years, (and) as they double, you can’t breathe…vehicular emission amounted to 48% of the entire pollution mix and aggravated by industry and agriculture waste burning in Pakistan,” Rehman said.

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She was addressing at a conference on ‘Pakistan Electric Vehicle - Accelerating the Transition to a Sustainable Future’, organized by Climate Action Center (CAC).

She maintained that since a significant part of the atmospheric pollution is produced locally then the nation can all alone overcome the air quality challenge. “We are not helpless in the situation and we do not need a vast network of multilateral conferences to make change happen.”

“To make breathe again, we don’t need to go the whole world with us. We need to do ourselves,” said Rehman, who is also a former federal minister for Climate Change.

She said Pakistan is capable to partly overcome climate challenges through electric vehicle revolution. To make it happens, the government and the private sector have to incentivize vehicle customer, especially the two and three-wheeler who comprise 84% of the total vehicle population in the country.

“We have to offer incentives on import taxes and tariffs especially to two and three wheelers… momentum cannot be created and accelerated only on ethical and moral grounds.”

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The EV customers have to be incentivized in the manner the existing players do not feel like they are being disincentivized. “Without incentives, neither the industry can be run, not will the customer get attracted.”

She urged upon civil society to play its active role in bringing social change to get control over the greenhouse gases and emissions and bring the pre-industrial temperature level down

Pakistan is unfortunately the second most polluted country in the world. Some of its major cities including Lahore, Multan and Karachi are frequently positioned among 10 polluted cities and towns around the world.

In this all worse happening, the good news is that the first fleet of 500 electric busses is around to arrive in Karachi soon by the Sindh government, she said.

She emphasized upon current vehicle owners to maintain them efficiently and frequently to reduce air pollution and pollution-driven health issues as the fossil fuel-run vehicles are not going to disappear anytime soon from the roads.

“We can do much better in overcoming the climate change challenges compared to many small countries in Europe,” she stressed.