By Uzma Zafar
ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain Friday said it was a great honour for Pakistan to host World Environment Day on Saturday, themed ‘Ecosystem Restoration’.
Speaking at an inauguration ceremony of two-day photographic exhibition in Pak-China Friendship Centre, he said it was a recognition of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government’s initiatives on environment globally. Fawad said the incumbent government had disseminated the maximum information about environmental hazards, which was unmatched as compared to the past governments.
He said the credit went to the environment friendly vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan. He said country’s forests had become desolate, rivers had got polluted, streams had disappeared while trees had become almost extinct but no government had paid heed to the situation which had caused severe damage to the ecosystem.
The minister said the PTI led government launched the one billion tree tsunami project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which was appreciated and acknowledged at the international level, including the United Nations organizations. Now, the government had launched 10 billion tree tsunami project which was proving successful, he added.
He felicitated the State Minister for Climate Change Zartaj Gul for holding such an exhibition.
State Minister for Climate Change Zartaj Gul, State Minister for Information Farrukh Habib were also present on the occasion.
At the outset of ceremony, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Hussain Chaudhry, Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Secretary Shahera Shahid planted tree saplings separately.
Earlier on Thursday, the federal government said it has initiated work on a number of green financing instruments, buoyed by widespread global investor interest in Pakistan’s first green bond floated in the international market last week. The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) on May 27 launched the country’s first-ever US dollar-denominated green Eurobonds, seeking $500 million for environmentally friendly projects to enhance the clean energy share in the country’s power generation mix, which relies heavily on fossil fuels, particularly coal.
“The green bond was six times oversubscribed which shows there is a global appetite for a country that has economic stability and as well as green credibility,” Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam told reporters.
Pakistan, which is the host country of the UN’s annual World Environment Day on June 5, is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change, and has been hit hard by extreme weather events including devastating floods. It is now looking to become a major player in the global green financing market. Aslam said the government plans to further tap the green bond avenue for building and transport financing.
The govt on Thursday also completed its first assessment for blue bonds, a financing instrument that raises capital from global investors for projects that protect ocean ecology and related industries, such as fisheries and eco-tourism. For this, Aslam said that Pakistan had launched its first blue carbon estimation, aided by the World Bank. He said the World Bank had estimated the country’s new plantation projects, including planting 10 billion trees over the next few years, if nurtured successfully would be worth $500m by 2050.
The World Bank, he said, had used conservative estimates for carbon pricing, and the valuation could go up to $2.5bn. Pakistan on Thursday also released a joint statement with Canada, Britain, Germany and the United Nations Development Programme outlining its push to establish a “Nature Performance Bond” to provide the country with accelerated access to development financing and debt relief in exchange for meeting ecosystem restoration targets.
