Karachi: We are holding this Seminar after a gap of several months as we were very hopeful that the promise to make Karachi a Uroosal Bilad would be kept. Instead we see a very broken down exhausted city that is ill prepared to face the prognosis of the oncoming disasters of increasing Climate Change attacks, which continues to languish in the lowest denominator in the global indexes as the 5th most unlivable city, one of the most Air Polluted, and tourist risky cities of the world!!
These indicators can be contested. But our environment experts and the city town planners and our own suffering are enough testimony to their veracity.
Climate Change has been on the World map for decades. Pakistan has a well-staffed Federal Climate Change Ministry. It is a Signatory to several International Climate Change Mitigation Charters, and has ratified most. Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, is well-informed about the city’s problems and their solutions, having commissioned the comprehensive Karachi Diagnostic Report (KCD) from the World Bank. He has detailed advice from experts, but it remains unclear why those recommendations have not been implemented?
Karachi continues without a Master Plan. It continues to be scrappily governed by non-coordinating multiple land owning authorities!
It has no mass public transportation system as yet (to ease poisonous fuel emissions) a huge tree deficit a collapsed infrastructure and a nonfunctioning sanitation system, no renewable energy investments and no ownership of problems.
Mangroves are highly valuable in the fight against climate change as they capture and store carbon conserving and restoring natural spaces, both on land. Mangroves also provide a habitat and breeding ground for a variety of marine life, particularly fish, shrimps and crabs. Climate change and biodiversity loss (as well as pollution) are part of an interlinked triple planetary crisis the world is facing today. Karachi’s growing concrete jungle, mangrove forests which protect the city’s coastline against cyclones, strong winds, coastal flooding or other climate change induced disasters, face serious threat of destruction. Several locations along the Karachi coast where significant tracts of mangroves have been cleared for housing schemes and commercial and industrial projects have been identified.
More than half the trash of Karachi’s 25 million population and its untreated sewerage water flows into Karachi’s coastal waters, destroying the natural eco system, its precious mangroves and marine life. The designated water treatment plant lie unrepaired for decades!
Despite the SOS on Mangroves and their immense role in combatting climate change, huge denudation has been allowed to accommodate building sites. This is as reprehensible as the destruction of the Malir orchards to build expressway and colonies.
The WWF has requested a stop to mangrove destruction along the coastline of Karachi to implement strict.
The plan to plant millions of trees in Karachi since three decades is still not executed. Just like the absence of actual figures on how many people live in Karachi, there’s no data for how many trees are there in the city and how many more are needed. It was 7% in 2007 now perhaps 3%. Street trees also benefit urban dwellers by reducing temperatures and thus investments in tree planting and maintenance is also very needed. The Mayor of Karachi who is in charge of parks and plantations should have a record of what is planned and achieved. But what is seen are uncoordinated piecemeal plantation routines by official quarters and well-meaning citizens (also political parties) that do not give adequate cover to this huge metropolis.
The Mayor is now the chairman of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) and the divisional board of the Sindh Solid Waste Management board for Karachi. There should have been a better control over repair and cleaning of the sanitation system, and the trash disposal of the city, and repair on the water treatment plants.
The air in Karachi is polluted by automobile smoke, especially rickshaws and buses, industrial emissions, open burning of garbage, house fires, and other particles but the government and SEPA environment organizations do not seem to take the issue seriously or in a timely manner.
What is being done to improve the contaminants of Air pollution, transport emissions, construction materials, unrepaired treatment plants, the collapsed sewage infrastructure?
The drains cleaning is a botched up exercise contracted out to dubiously qualified contractors, whose working is rarely monitored resulting in carelessly lifted covers that are broken, resulting in open drains that welcome the neighborhood trash and lead to urban flooding.
Karachi remains a city in perpetual crises!
In the 2024-25 budget, Karachi was expected to contribute around 60pc (Rs7.78tr) of the targeted Rs12.97tr in tax revenues. In return Karachi’s Development Allocation was a meager 1.389 billion on 11 ongoing projects! How was it, is it utilized? Because Karachi’s infrastructure in the July pre monsoon moderate down pour witnessed a total infrastructure collapse, with huge road crators & sewage water flooding the streets! The loss was so considerable that CM and Karachi’s Mayor had to scold the officials, especially of the Karachi, World Bank funded CLICK project, publicly!!
Karachi remains a rudderless city without priority. The ongoing damage due to climate change on the city’s environmental, and social structures are leaving the city’s vulnerable citizens with huge economic losses, serious illness, and endemic diseases. The clear implications of climate change particularly in the realm of decreasing CO2 output, and a collapsed city infrastructure and sanitation system, requires meaningful action not SOPs like relief measures or cosmetic firefighting gestures, for Karachi the Nation Golden goose cannot afford to remain a sick city…. incapable of feeding the Nation’s starving Exchequer or it’s huge 25 million population.
Karachi’s Tragedy & Neglect is a Lack of Ownership…by its Govt…major political parties…the multiple self-interested Business Associations…the apathy of its citizens…who do not play a organized proactive role….
But it is the Govt who has been voted into authority to serve the public interest, with the ultimate Ethical, and Constitutional Responsibility to govern Karachi, who must bear the guilt of its breakdown.
We have a diverse panel of experts to speak on the various measures that must be carried out to combat climate change.
Our recommendations based on our meetings with them are as follows.
- Review the colonial, archaic governance processes and include the citizen as stakeholder.
- Improve the coordination & collaboration between the various agencies that govern Karachi through a legalized organization structure.
- Digitalize the entire Governance system, to bring in efficiency transparency and accountability…and facilitate ease of stakeholder participation.
- Accelerate the mass public transport system.
- Repair the antiquated sanitation systems, and the water treatment plants, with immediacy.
- Enforce laws for all industry including the construction industry to adopt ecofriendly methodologies.
- Enforce existing laws on the denudation of forests and the cutting of trees without proper certification or public notification and approval.
- Ensure holistic tree plantation of the city…taking on board all the land owning authorities of the city, educational institutes and students, expert horticulturists and their volunteers to ensure that the plantation yields fruitful outcomes.
Let us have a united platform, of harmoniously joining together to own our city to make it safe, livable, healthy, happy, prosperous, the Quaid’s City the Pride of Pakistan and together celebrate with hope Pakistan Zindabad Pakistan Paindabad76th Pakistan Independence Day Mubarak to All
