Pakistani senate delegation made its way to the European parliament to attend a two day Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership (ASEP) meeting, which is the parliamentary extension of the Asian-European political dialogue and an effort to enhance relations between Europe and Asia. Parliamentarians from European Union member states and 18 Asian countries are debating the environmental challenges that Asia and Europe are facing. In this regard, a three-member delegation of parliamentarians from the senate comprising Senator Faisal Javed, Senator Muhammad Shafiq Tareen and Senator Najma Hameed went to participate in the 10th ASEP hosted by the European parliament. Faisal Javed, who happens to be a member of the Standing Committee on Climate Change, made a speech at the EU parliament in the thematic session pertaining to climate change and its impact on the economy. He said that it is a matter of pleasure to be part of ASEP10. “A great learning as together we can fight against climate change to make this world a better place to live for generations to come,” Javed remarked. He said that Pakistan has given huge sacrifices for world peace, for world’s environment and of course environment for peace. “As we say that great leaders do not focus on future elections, they focus on future generations. Here is an example from Pakistan – under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan, Pakistan has become the first country to meet the International Bonn Challenge – where we restored over 350,000 hectors land into forests – planted over a billion trees, provided over 13,000 private tree nurseries, boosted local incomes as it created over 500,000 green jobs,” Javed said, adding that it has been acknowledged by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, where they had given the world a challenge of restoring 150 million hectares of land into forests by 2020 and 350 million hectares of land by 2030. Pakistan was the first to meet this very challenge that it took of restoring 350,000 hectares and was audited by World-Wild Life Fund, an independent audit that declared this project as environmental, economic and a social success. He apprised that the next plan by the government of Pakistan is to plant over 10 billion trees across Pakistan. In this regard, on the inaugural day of this campaign, “we planted 1.5 million trees. So we do hope that within the next five years, we will be able to plant over 10 billion trees across Pakistan. Our focus is on green energy, clean water, green jobs and efficient use of resources as we do know the fact that there is a huge challenge where requirement of having 25 percent of forest land as we stand at 2.5 percent of the total forest land in Pakistan”. He said that together we can and together we must, combat climate change. “From this forum, we take back great learning as we share ideas and we do see some great deal of seriousness among all of us in terms of addressing this great challenge,” he shared adding an example of how the political will and commitment ensured achieving a huge milestone and taking up yet another challenge of planting 10 billion trees in Pakistan. The chair thanked Javed and said the ASEP10 takes a lot of encouragement from what is said here. Sardar Shafiq Tareen also highlighted some important aspects and said that the senate has taken lead in this regard and placed climate change on priority agenda. He said that an integrated approach has been adopted by the senate committees to discuss and debate the climate change and formulate recommendations for mitigating the negative effects. He referred to the Standing Committee on Climate Change, Senate Standing Committee on Water Scarcity and the Parliamentary Caucus on Climate Change has placed it as #1 priority and serious efforts are being made to formulate the recommendations. Another member of the delegation, Najma Hameed also stressed the need for joint efforts and collective approach to address the adverse effects of climate change. Participants lauded the efforts of the Pakistani government and the parliament for taking concrete steps to resolve the issues and chalk out plans for addressing climate change and environmental degradation. Published in Daily Times, September 29th 2018.