ISLAMABAD: Experts and lawmakers Tuesday urged on a rapid shift to clean, affordable energy alongside expanded forests as extreme heat and floods hit different parts of country especially KPK.
They have also called for urgent action to promote renewable energy, restore ecosystems such as the Indus Delta, and strengthen green financing.
While addressing the National Climate Justice Youth Film Festival 2025 held here, they have criticised developed nations for fuelling climate change.
Indus Consortium, an organisation focused on climate change, humanitarian, and development issues, organised the festival 2025.
Parliamentarians, civil society representatives, academics, diplomats and climate activists attending the seminar.
Indus Consortium Chairman Liaqat Ali said the festival had become a flagship platform for youth to share their creativity and contribute to the climate justice movement.
He noted that Pakistan is increasingly vulnerable to heat waves, droughts and flash floods, which threaten communities, ecosystems, and the economy.
He called for urgent action to promote renewable energy, restore ecosystems such as the Indus Delta, and strengthen green financing.
Senator Sherry Rehman Chair of the senate standing committee on climate criticised developed nations for fuelling climate change, saying Pakistan, which emits less than one per cent of global carbon, is paying the price for their industrial greed.
She called climate change a global crisis created by the industrialised world but disproportionately devastating for vulnerable countries like Pakistan.
Crop burning, brick kilns, and unchecked urban development are killing our people, she said. Citing the 2022 floods that submerged one-third of Pakistan and recent disasters that killed hundreds across 63 districts, she termed the situation “climate injustice” as $7 trillion continues to be funnelled into fossil fuel subsidies worldwide.
Sherry Rehman warned that record-breaking heat waves, rising seas, and deforestation threaten Pakistan’s agriculture, livestock, and human survival. She urged immediate domestic action, including expanding forest cover, regulating urban growth, encouraging low-plastic start-ups, and embracing renewable energy.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025