ISLAMABAD: Experts at a seminar on Friday emphasized that amid growing population and risks of climate-induced disasters, it has become imperative for the federal capital to maintain climate-resilient infrastructure to sustain itself as a livable metropolis.
A seminar titled “Building Urban Climate Resilience in Islamabad” was jointly organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) here. CANSA representatives attended the seminar online.
Deputy Executive Director of SDPI Dr. Shafqat Munir emphasized the need to establish some model municipalities with climate resilient infrastructure and said that Pakistan needs a strong local governance system to develop climate smart urban centers while small scale decentralization must be achieved as every disaster hits the local level or the lowest level of states like are cities or municipalities.
Referring to the SDPI report of the same name, he said: “In Nepal, a mayor from a small village has developed climate-smart infrastructure in his village, but in Pakistan, financial constraints for local authorities are a major obstacle to achieving the goal. urban resilience’.
However, he pointed out that the country lacks a strong local government system that needs to be strengthened and a democratic one with maximum powers rests on elected local leadership.
He informed that SDPI is also working with provincial governments to convince them to invest in peri-urban areas and local government for climate resilience.
Aleena Kareem said transparency of public projects, better reporting and impact assessment mechanisms, and public-private partnerships could support urban resilience initiatives. She suggested the relevant authorities to set net zero targets for Islamabad to curb its carbon emissions to avoid climate disasters.
Nakul of CANSA said that Pakistan has the highest population growth and urbanization rate needs proper mechanism and efforts in this regard. As cities in South Asia are at the receiving end of the economic nature of development, major efforts beyond the COP forums are needed to meet its urban resilience goals, Nakul added.
Associate Research Fellow, SDPI, Zainab Naeem gave a brief presentation on the report in which he said: “Approximately 4.3 billion people, i.e. 55% of the world’s population, live in urban centres, while South Asia has accelerated the growth trend with one of the highest urbanization trends . in Pakistan”.
She emphasized that the link between climate change and urban growth is prevalent in major economic sectors across South Asia. “Climate change may exacerbate existing health risks in urban areas due to factors such as air pollution and extreme heat. However, South Asia would need $215 billion annually for flood protection by 2030 due to recurring flood risks,” she added.
“The decadal mean annual temperature increased by 0.32°C in Pakistan with a significant upward trend in mean annual temperature from 1961-2022 following rapid population growth due to rural-urban migration,” she noted.
The report suggests some action points leading to institution building, coordination and governance, policy interventions, planning frameworks such as green procurement, supply chains, pollution laws and obligations towards polluters and financing to create sustainable sources of income for green and resilient urbanisation.
Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) Ashiq Nawaz said that the federal capital was established to meet the needs of the federation, but it has become a commercial center that has overflowed with the burden of population and services beyond its capacity.
The natural waterways of the federal capital were polluted by garbage and waste dumping which created silt in the nullahs leading to the risk of flooding in the cities while generating 600 tonnes of solid waste daily without proper dumping which was a serious problem, he added.
“The EPA wants segregation at source and integrated source management to help break down bulk waste at source to better manage solid waste,” he said.
Irfan Niazi, Deputy Director General, Environment Wing of Capital Development Authority (CDA), informed the participants that the Margalla Hill National Park consists of three types of land, namely forest reserves, military pastures and acquired CDA land.
However, he said that the interventions in the first two categories were negligible, while the population still lives in the acquired territory and has not been compensated for the acquired land.
