Voice of climate-by Naseem Sheikh

According to the district administration Mirpur, the earthquake caused the road infrastructure to be completely inflamed while the main highway and several bridges along the Mangla earth were lost. On the other hand, the number of people killed in the earthquake was 46 while 450 injured are under treatment in different areas, of which dozens are said to be in critical condition. Severe earthquake has disrupted communication system in various cities of Punjab and Khabar Pakhtunkhwa including Azad Kashmir and power supply has been suspended in several areas of Azad Kashmir since yesterday afternoon.  Climate change increases the risk of earthquakes and other natural disasters many fold. Aftershocks in Azad Kashmir are proceeding and shaking tremors are felt in different areas. While women and children took refuge in local parks. According to the Disaster management authority,Pakistan, the magnitude earthquake at 4 pm on Tuesday afternoon was 5.8 and its depth was 10 km, and...

  Weather of Pakistan  is expecting another good spell of monsoon rain after very hot, humid and sweaty period. PMD (Pakistan Meteorological Department ) has informed that the “second spell of monsoon rains is expected in coming 24 hours, travelling through the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, has made its way into the north-eastern parts of the country.” Rainfall is expected to match the long-term average to slightly more in northern half of Pakistan. Good rainfall spell are expected during the 2nd and 3rd decade of the month, which may cause urban flooding and flash floods in some parts of the country. According to the spokesperson of meteorological department, the monsoon with gusty winds and thunder splash will lash isolated places in Malakand, Hazara, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala and Lahore divisions, Islamabad, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Azad Kashmir regions from 13th to 15th July. “Seasonal Low lies over North Baluchistan on 14th and 15th July with its trough extending sou...

Pakist­an needs to shift to enviro­nment-friend­ly energy. Pakistan must adopt other technologies for generating power from renewable energy sources, such as municipal waste and landfill methane geothermal recovery, anaerobic biomass gasification, biological fuels, fuel cells and ocean waves. It is no secret that Pakistan is in the grip of a serious energy crisis that is affecting all sectors of the economy and various segments of society. Luckily Pakistan is also blessed with many resources but the government has not focused on alternative energy to the extent that it should, so far. For years, the matter of balancing Pakistan’s supply against the demand for electricity has remained a largely unresolved matter. And it is a separate issue that Pakistan faces a significant challenge in revamping its distribution network as well. A lot of problems arise out of the fact that Pakistan’s energy infrastructure is neither well developed nor well managed. The mismanagement can be gauged from...

Pakistan is one of the countries that contributes least to global climate change but, nevertheless, it has played a leading role in trying to formulate global consensus on cooperating to address it .Also, the country is cognizant of its development priorities and is actively seeking both financial and technological suppor, to place its undeniable future growth on to a low carbon trajectory. Global deforestation and degradation accelerated climate change and to counter this, initiatives such as Reduced Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) was important as an alleviation response. The United Nation Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCC) was adopted in 1992 and Pakistan was one of its signatory along with 194 other nations. The study, by researchers at the University of California, Merced, concluded that rising temperatures associated with climate change could result in many more severe forest fires in the coming decades. Professor Anthony Westerling and his tea...