ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: A Pre COP-22 event “Pakistan se Marrakesh: Framing the Pakistan Agenda for COP-22 took place in Islamabad with the collaboration of Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change, the Ministry of Climate Change and the Embassy of France.
“This dialogue is taking place at very opportunistic time when we are going to participate in COP-22,” Minister for Climate Change Zahid Hamid on Friday said.
He told the audience that Pakistan would soon sign Paris agreement.
He informed that Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) are in its final phase and soon will be submitted.
“It is a great pleasure to share that Pakistan Climate Change Bill is also getting finalized very soon,” the minister added.
He said Pakistan is facing many challenges in the form of floods, glaciers melting, droughts, sea level rise and increasing temperature.
“These disasters have affected millions of people in Pakistan. We have taken many initiatives at policy level like Climate Change Policy, Disaster Risk Reduction policy and now Climate Change Bill also,” he said.
Pakistan became first country to adopt Sustainable Development Goals as its own national goals.
He announced to have bigger pavilion and larger delegation for COP-22.
French Ambassadors in Pakistan Martine Dorance addressed the participants and said that young people in Pakistan are more aware of climate change issues.
She appreciated that Pakistan would be ratifying Paris Agreement very soon.
Ayesha Khan CEO of Mountains and Glaciers Protection Organization addressed the audience and said that presence of minister in this event shows commitment of Prime Minister of Pakistan taking climate change issue very seriously.
Last year, French Ambassador in Pakistan and her team took the responsibility to engage stakeholders and civil society and this coalition of civil society was formed. It’s a forum where we can take valuable input from all stakeholders.
The European Union Ambassador, the Moroccan embassy representative and United Nations Development Program in Pakistan representative also addressed the audience.
The purpose of this event was to hold dialogue between civil society and public sector stakeholders.
The dialogue is designed to deliberate with legislators, policy makers and civil society including media on key elements of Pakistan’s INDC’s with a view sharing and receiving of expert opinion from all stakeholders.
In this special meeting, inputs from a wild range of actors were collected to compile concrete suggestions that reflect the views of diverse sectors in meeting the challenges of adaptation and mitigation on determined INDC’s.
A large number of people from civil society, government officials and academia participated in this event.
