Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday warned that climate change would not spare other countries after the flash floods inundated one-third of Pakistan and left millions of people homeless.
“What happened in Pakistan will not stay in Pakistan,” he said in a tweet reiterating his call for urgent action a day after the United Nations issued a revised flash appeal of $816 million as relief assistance for the flood-stricken people of the country.
A month ago, an initial $160 million flash appeal was made to address immediate needs based on estimates. However, the results of the recent needs assessments, that led to the up-scaling of the flash appeal to $816 million, revealed that much more was needed to save those struggling to survive the aftermath of the floods.
PM Shehbaz Sharif in his tweet highlighted that more than 1,600 Pakistanis-including 400 children had lost their lives due to massive floods besides thousands of kilometres of road infrastructure and bridges washed away. “Entire villages have been swallowed up by raging waters. Nature has been truly unforgiving,” he said. Recently, Shehbaz Sharif actively pursued the case of the flood-hit Pakistan on international platforms, including at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan, in London, and at the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly.
A video compilation shared by the official Twitter account of the Government of Pakistan gave a flashback of different occasions when Shehbaz Sharif made passionate calls at the global level, stressing an urgent response by the world for the disaster-hit Pakistan. In his meetings with over 50 world leaders on the eves of SCO and UNGA last month, the prime minister called for climate justice and appealed to the world to share the burden of the climate crisis. He also highlighted that Pakistan was responsible for less than one percent of the world’s planet-warming gases yet it was the eighth most vulnerable nation to the climate crisis.
During his participation at both the important global and regional forums, Sharif on the sidelines, also interacted with foreign media to relay his message about the importance of an emergency action plan against climate change.
With his call for climate action, PM Sharif was covered by the world’s top broadcasters and international media including Washington Post, CNN, Reuters, Aljazeera, BBC, Bloomberg, TRT World, Independent, Arab News, Le Monde, Al Ittihad, Zaman, Barron’s, City News, YeniSafak, The Straits Times, and several others.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shehbaz directed the authorities concerned to link the Thar Coal Mines with the country’s railway network by March 2023.
During a meeting chaired by the prime minister, it was principally decided that the project of linking Thar Coal Mines with rail network would be jointly executed by the federal and Sindh governments. In this regard, Prime Minister Shehbaz and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah would sign a Memorandum of Understanding. The prime minister told the meeting that the development projects needed to be completed with the ‘Pakistan Speed’ as the previous government had inflicted irreparable loss to the country during last four years. He said the government was trying to revive the development course which the previous government had deliberately kept halted during 2018 to 2022.
“During our previous government, we accomplished the development projects within record period. What to talk of launching new development projects, the previous government halted the ongoing ones wasting the public money as a grave conspiracy,” he remarked. He said with the linking of Thar Coal Mines with railway network, local coal would be used in power plants replacing the imported one. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the usage of Thar coal in power plants would help save $2 billion annually. The meeting was told that after the linking of Thar Coal Mines with rail network, the local coal would be utilized not only the power plants of Jamshoro and Port Qasim but also other power plants nd industries in the country to save the public money.
The prime minister instructed the authorities concerned to accelerate the work on the said project to complete it by March 2023.Federal ministers Ishaq Dar, Ahsan Iqbal, Khurram Dastgir, special assistants to PM Jahanzeb Khan, Zafaruddin Mahmood and senior officers attended the meeting. Railway Minister Khawaja Saad Rafiq and Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah joined the meeting via video link.
