Karachi, December 16th, 2022 –”Climate Change and Karachi – Building Coastal Resilience” Conference was held In Karachi, which aimed to highlight the impacts of climate change on the city and the measures that can be taken to mitigate its effects through a series of presentations by keynote speakers followed by panel discussions. The event started with opening remarks by Racha Alkhawaja, CEO, TPL Investment Management, Abu Dhabi, emphasizing the role of our country’s business and government fraternity towards sustainable development. “We have gathered here to contemplate possibilities, pledge towards sustainability and commit our efforts to the generations ahead.” The conference included professionals from both private and government sectors who could play a vital role in encouraging sustainable practices to steer the city towards building coastal resilience.
“This conference has allowed us to move in the right direction,” said Nazifa Butt, Senior Manager, Climate and Energy Programme, WWF. “Climate change has ravaged our current ecosystem and if not addressed, will devastate our future generations. The planet’s future is at stake”. Nazifa has been associated with the organization for the past 12 years and has more than 18 years of experience in areas like Climate Change, Sustainable Living & Healthy Urban Lifestyles. She heads Corporate Partnerships and Fundraising at WWF-Pakistan where she has carried out various corporate and citizen engagement activities.
The presentations discussed areas for adaptation, methods to combat the shifting climate, and key initiatives that need to be taken to help vulnerable communities adapt to climate change through sustainable solutions. “We have a series of milestones ahead. Development initiatives of the future should encompass sustainability goals. Keeping our environment as a prime factor, restoring mangroves to mitigate climate change should be considered on a national level across both government and private sectors,” said Tariq A. Qaiser, Principal Architect, TAQ Associates, an architect, environmentalist, filmmaker, and former faculty member at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston.
Each session showed the reality of climate change effects in the future, and what needs to be done to restore the ecosystem. “Man has trifled with nature, in its own greed, and now nature is having its say. We need to restore the balance disturbed by us if we plan for our generations to have a brighter future”. Said Masood Lohar, an award-winning climate change adaptation and mitigation expert with over two decades of experience in ecosystem restoration and promoting urban forests/wetlands.
The panel discussions included notable personalities such as DG Environment-Naeem Mughal, Shah Murad Aliani, Nazifa Butt, Riaz Wagan, Nadeem Mirbahar, Farhan A. Mehboob, Tariq A. Qaiser, Masood Lohar, and Tofiq Pasha Mooraj. The discussion prompted the provincial authorities and corporate fraternity to revisit and strengthen the climate change adaptation strategies for 2023, as well as accelerate efforts to adopt renewable energy options and phase out inefficient fossil fuel dependency. [1]
The Conference ended with closing remarks by Mr. Muhammad Taimur Talpur, Minister of Forest Department, Sindh, “The discussions held today, could pave a decade-long idea on how corporations should mitigate their operations and address their impact on communities that have suffered from the impacts of climate change. The focus on renewable energy should be a unanimous effort.
