Prime Minister Imran Khan gave statement on the recent issue of Pakistan not being invited on the Virtual leaders’ Summit on Climate being hosted by the United States on Earth Day 22-23 April this year. While expressing his views on official twitter handle, Prime Minister Imran Khan underlined that According to Prime Minister, he felt baffled at the cacophony being raised by his political opponents on the issue of Pakistan not being invited to attend the ‘Virtual leaders’ Summit on Climate’. While recounting Pakistan efforts to climate change, Prime Minister Imran Khan said that his government’s initiatives over the climate change and environmental protection are solely driven for the future generations of the country. PTI government initiated several mega projects including Green Pakistan, 10 billion Tree Tsunami, nature-based solutions and cleaning up rivers etc. Pakistan’s Primer assured the world that Pakistan has vast experience of climate protection initiatives and it is ready to help any state wanting to learn from our experience. According to reports, President Joe Biden is scheduled to host leaders’ summit of 40 international leaders across the world to accelerate the international efforts on climate change. The US leaders’ summit is an important international endeavor ahead of UN Climate Change Conference (COP-26) scheduled to be held in November 2021 in Glasgow. The summit will focus on the ways and means to enhance climate ambition to create good jobs, advance innovative technologies and help vulnerable countries to adapt climate change. According to White House official handout, the Summit will reunite the US-led Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, brings together 17 countries responsible for approximately 80 percent of global emissions and global GDP. White House further informed the media that US President also invited the heads of other countries that are demonstrating strong climate leadership, are especially vulnerable to climate impacts, or are charting innovative pathways to a net-zero economy. In fact, the US administration has invited all those world countries having contribution to climate change either positive or negative irrespective of its political antagonism. The topmost in the list are two US adversaries China and Russia. The Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), is an independent resource used to monitor and track the climate protection and performance for countries around the world. The CPPI grades 57 countries, evaluating them with four key categories, their Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG), renewable energy, total energy use and their climate policy.
According to CCPI, most of the big economies are more contributing to emission of CO2 gas starting from China, USA, India, Russia, and others while in best performers are Sweden, Denmark and Morocco. India stands 9 in the list of best performers. Whereas Pakistan has not yet attained any position in top ten slots.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has expressed his annoyance over Opposition unnecessary criticism for not being invited on US leaders’ summit on climate change. It must not be raised an issue because the summit is being organized by the United States and it has the sole right to invite the countries it desires. There is no fault of PTI government, however, the tall claims being made by the government regarding its endeavors in the field of climate change has not been acknowledged by international Community so far, as being portrayed by the government. However, PTI government must continue its work for climate change with a censor eye on its performance until the world acknowledge its high performance and request our expertise and experience in this regard.
