By Asghar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday underlined the need for global efforts to address the challenge of climate change by adopting environment-friendly technology, promoting afforestation, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The president, talking to the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan/COP 29 President-designate, Mukhtar Babayev, who along with his delegation called on him, highlighted that global warming and climate change were affecting the glacier and causing water scarcity.
He said that tackling these challenges required global support to mitigate their adverse impacts. Azerbaijan is going to host the 29th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 29) in Baku in November 2024 and the minister, in his capacity as the President-designate of COP 29, is here to invite President Zardari to the conference. Welcoming the minister, the president congratulated Azerbaijan on winning the bid to host COP 29 and expressed the hope that COP 29 would result in setting the New Collective Quantified Goal on Finance that would help developing countries fulfil their climate finance needs.
He highlighted that Pakistan had planted mangrove forests over hundreds of thousands of hectares that would help protect the environment, besides earning carbon credits for Pakistan.
President Zardari said that Pakistan highly valued its relations with Azerbaijan and wanted to further expand bilateral cooperation in the areas of common interest. He called for promoting more interactions, bilateral exchanges and people-to-people contacts to further cement relations between the two brotherly countries.
Mukhtar Babayev underlined the need for further enhancing bilateral cooperation between Pakistan and Azerbaijan, particularly in the area of tourism and culture. He also delivered the invitation to the president to participate in COP 29 in Baku in November 2024.
The president conveyed his best wishes for the successful hosting of COP 29 and expressed the hope that Azerbaijan would play its role to secure the interest of developing countries in meeting their financing needs for climate adaptation.
Earlier, President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday urged all provincial governments and stakeholders to collaborate in controlling the spread of malaria and make Pakistan a Malaria free country. “I urge our healthcare providers both in the public and private sector, the non-governmental organizations, private entities, philanthropists, community leaders, media and other stakeholders to raise awareness about the Malaria control issues but also in alleviating the sufferings of ailing human beings through improved diagnostic and therapeutic procedures,” the president said in a message on World Malaria Day. He said the day which is observed every year on April 25, is a reminder of the need to undertake concerted efforts in raising awareness and finding solutions to meet the growing challenges to control Malaria in the endemic areas of the country. Malaria is preventable, easy to diagnose and treatable, which entails collective efforts by all stakeholders.
