Climate change adaptations for sustainable agriculture in Pakistan

[Music]

[Applause]

okay let me start by thanking

the hall polish for women university and

local tech chapter for giving me this

opportunity

uh to share my thoughts um look

pakistan as a country is blessed with

diverse ecosystems and is quite rich in

flora and fauna

but this is the country which is also

ranked as

one of the top five most affected

country

when you look at climate change for us

as a country climate change is water

change

uh around half of the water in our water

channels comes from snow and glacier

melt and these

are the glaciers which are melting at a

very high rate secondly

if you look at the extreme weather

events

and you look at the history the last

like five

seven years you can easily see

that the frequency and intensity of

these events has increased significantly

we also have a long coast

uh the areas like titan badeen

we can see that sea water has started

intruding

if you look at the groundwater situation

in those areas you’ll see high levels

of salts which means that the

groundwater is also impacted by the

saline

brackish sea water

the we are also kind of a children of

monsoon

our agriculture system depends on the

monsoon rains

many areas we have you know started

observing

that the monsoon pattern is also

changing

this has also resulted in some areas uh

you know this has resulted in urban

flooding

maybe our system is not in a position to

cope you know with this high intensity

of rain in a short span of time so maybe

these are the few

factors which make us as one of the most

vulnerable country if you look at

climate change

so the world has realized that pakistan

is one of the most vulnerable countries

so

you can see that there’s a lot of

support

which is available uh if you look at

the the policy and regulatory framework

within the

you know within the country uh we see

that now there is a separate ministry

it’s called ministry of climate change

we recently promulgated the national

climate change policy

we also uh through a very participating

process we developed a framework for

action

where the idea was to ensure

that the key features of national

climate change policy

are implemented uh there are actions

there are short-term actions there are

medium-term actions and they are

long-term actions and all though because

a lot of these subjects they are

provincial subjects so

the provinces uh commit to take actions

both you know uh in the short term and

in the long term as part of uh that

framework

so we are fortunate that we have a kind

of a green party in power our prime

minister is a nature lover

uh he has taken and his government has

taken a lot of initiatives to address

environmental challenges in general

and the few challenges related to

climate change

in particular we wanted to

have more vegetation cover as a carbon

sink

so they launched this 10 billion tree

tsunami

program where the idea is that in the

next

couple of years there will be 10 billion

trees

uh you know they will be insured

uh the other initiative is uh clean and

green pakistan

where again there’s a lot of focus on

you know having sustainable green cities

urban forest is like one initiative

which comes

under that then there is a protected

area initiative

the key habitats they are

you know they’re taking actions to

protect

those habitats they are expanding the

national parks they have introduced

couple of new

protected areas the recent urban

flooding

uh they have the government has also

taken it seriously

so there have been uh some actions some

steps taken particularly in the the

largest coastal city

karachi where we saw a lot of

devastation because of

urban flooding so these are you know the

few initiatives

uh taken taken by the government but we

have also seen

that the private sector and other civil

society organizations

have also you know started working

collectively to address this challenge

there’s a

there’s a coalition of civil society

there

uh people are doing a lot of research

particularly focusing on climate change

adaptation

because i think it’s very clear to me

that for us

uh obviously mitigation is important but

adaptation is more important

we have to ensure that our farmers

our official community our people

are you know they are

uh sensitized and they are trained and

prepared

to meet the challenges related to

climate change

i think as i said earlier that for us

adaptation

is the key most of the agriculture in

pakistan is irrigated agriculture

which means that maybe in the initial

years

there will be more water but then there

will be viscosity of water

so we have to revisit our agriculture

policy

we have to revisit our cropping patterns

pakistan

most of the agriculture is irrigated

agriculture which means

that our farmers are producers they

depend on irrigation water to grow their

crops

and this is also linked to the food

security it’s very important that the

farmers

are trained and educate or educated

to use water more efficiently wwf

started a sustainable agriculture

program

almost 10 years ago with an objective to

build the capacity of farmers

to improve the water productivity to

ensure

that the uh the use of agriculture

chemicals

is is reduced i think it’s also very

important

that the crops that they use they are

not high data crop

so that’s the reason that as part of our

policy and network ac

we are you know doing a lot a lot of

lobbying to the government

to revisit our cropping uh cropping

pattern

and maybe there should be less reliance

on high delta

crops another area which needs attention

and a lot of work is being done

is rain water harvesting particularly in

our mountainous regions

where we get a lot of rainfalls there

are initiatives

where residents are encouraged to

harvest the rain water and then use it

when it’s

during the the dry period when there is

uh you know less water

available our dams are silting up

because of poor watershed management

areas and the catchment area the result

is

that a lot of silt comes in our dam it’s

very

it’s critically important that we

improve

uh the watershed management uh wwf again

you know recognizing the need has taken

and is working with the relevant

relevant government agencies

to improve the vegetation cover in the

catchment areas of some of the small

dams

okay as i shared earlier pakistan as a

country is not one of the leading

emitters

uh carbon emitter we are at the

receiving end

so it’s not the responsibility of the

government to take action

i think as an individual each one of us

has to take certain actions

i think the most important for us is

conservation

of energy and water as i said

for us climate change is water change so

we have to ensure

that you know as an individual uh in our

businesses in our workplace in our

houses we conserve both water and energy

the second thing is uh are our

buying uh priorities we have to ensure

as an individual

that we prefer appliances which are more

energy efficient another aspect which as

an individual we can do

is ensuring that our vehicles are

properly tuned

ensuring that if there’s an opportunity

we pool our resources we prefer

carpools instead of you know one person

one vehicle

climate change is very important for

food and water security and the role of

youth is critically important and that’s

the reason that wwf has launched few

campaigns

we have a school outreach program we

encourage

students to participate in the

activities some workshops some outdoor

activities

that we do as part of the campaign we

have

ydp the youth development program we

organize

digital workshops we engage

students in some of our campaigns these

campaigns

include awareness raising of target

communities

you know taking action on ground

collecting data

scientific research so we need your

support and

maybe that’s your responsibility to

support organizations

like wwf in their in their campaigns in

their work

because at the end of the day we need

collective action

and your role is very important