Daily Times

Engaging communities in effort to act on climate change is particularly more important in a country like Pakistan. Pakistan is a country which faces multiple challenges including terrorism, socioeconomic and political instability and the government barely has enough resources to address the most urgent challenge of Climate change. This year Pakistan experienced record high temperature exceeding 52 Celsius and widespread droughts in interior part of Sindh province. Given the urgent nature of the challenge of climate change, experts calls for engagement with impact from all walks of life.

Climate change is most urgent challenge, its real and happening. There has been various initiatives taken by the actors of civil society in most vulnerable areas. One notable initiative by Khyber PakhtunKhwa govt called ‘Billion tree tsunami’ acknowledged by Bonn Challenge.  The Yearbook of Global Climate Action 2017 illustrates how Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the only province or sub-national entity from Pakistan, inducted in the Bonn Challenge. Set up in 2011, the Bonn Challenge calls for the restoration of 150 million hectares of deforested and degraded land by 2020.

There is no shortage of academics including many students volunteering their participation in climate change adaptation efforts. Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan’s (BZU) Institute of Management Sciences’ (IMS) faculty, staff and students started a campaign to spread awareness among natives about critical importance of acting on climate change.

Acknowledging the efforts of the IMS, BZU  Vice Chancellor Prof Tahir Amin encouraged academics from other faculties including science, technology, engineering, mathematics, social sciences and humanities to engage in climate change related research projects to inform climate policy at national level.

IMS faculty members engage with students every day in the morning and share success stories of climate change adaptation through local community engagement across the world.

IMS engagement efforts are not just limited to merely telling success stories. IMS Director invited local business community to interact with students and discuss various plans to act on climate change.  One such plan is continues plantation in the university and surrounding areas. Initially, faculty, students and local business community planted some 10,000 trees. While committing support for this purpose, group Director Khawaja Muhammad Anees promised to bring other local firms to join and to further expand the scope of plantation drive. For students, this engagement made them feel excited about their contribution and for professors, these initiatives provided an opportunity to have experiential education, and to design curricula around the climate change efforts.

The IMS Director, while addressing students at the start of plantation drive, emphasised on further expanding the engagement beyond the university. He particularly highlighted the importance of engaging with people living in most vulnerable areas such as those living in slumps and areas close to river Chenab and Head Muhammad Wala. While, the academia has already started their efforts to effectively learn adapting the impacts of climate change. The local and provincial Govt should join hand to further expand the scope of these activities.

In addition, media should also cover such activities happening in different public and private academic Institutions.  Journalists need to engage with academic experts so as to keep themselves updated about the issue of climate change. It may be worthwhile for the government and related authorities to assist building an informed expert resource critical for creating public awareness about the issue of climate change. Higher education institutions also provide expert resource and information access to media houses. An effective engagement with impact by all stakeholders will help develop academic-journalistic nexus to improve the flow of information from scientists to the media, and from the media to the public.

The writer is Lecturer at IMS, Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan and research fellow in The University of Queensland Australia and works on Climate Change adaptation

He can be reached at s.shahzad@buisness.uq.edu.au Twitter: @Alluring_Will