ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Climate Change Zahid Hamid on Wednesday said that it was a great honour and privilege that Islamabad was hosting 13th Regional Consultative Committee (RCC) meeting.
He said the government is fully committed to make Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to cope with climatic challenges and taking several initiatives to achieve the target.
He said this during his address at the concluding session of the 13th RCC meeting.
The sub-theme of the concluding session of 13th RCC meeting was supporting Heart of Asia (HoA) for enhancing regional cooperation on disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and SDGs.
The participants of this session discussed the road map and action plan for HOA and looked for the opportunities for creating synergies with other regional mechanisms, which aimed at maximising the impact of efforts and strengthening risk reduction capacities of HOA countries with focus on promoting regional cooperation.
The efforts of Pakistan as a co-lead country with Kazakhstan for disaster management confidence building measures were very well acknowledge by all the participants.
“Today, the nature of common challenges our region is facing are complex, multi-dimensional and trans-national”, Hamid said in his speech.
He informed the conference that the ongoing and future activities in various areas of environment, including organisational structure, constitutional amendments were being carried out by the government in climate change policy.
He urged for a stronger emphasis on risk prevention and identification of role for all stakeholders from national to local level. He observed that the multi-hazards threats posed by natural calamities outline a dire need as well as great scope for extensive and intense mutual cooperation at the regional level.
He expressed that well-directed intervention of Pakistani government with strong political commitment ensured better preparedness to mitigate the negative impacts of disasters.
“Climate change threats to Pakistan are considerable in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events coupled with erratic monsoon rains causing floods and droughts”, he said. “Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Vision 2025 reflects the commitment for the country’s development needs and priorities, he added.
