Daily Times

President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Duarte Pacheo on Tuesday urged the international community, especially the developed countries to help Pakistan recover from the catastrophe of floods.

Speaking here at the inaugural session of “The Third Inter-Parliamentary Union Regional Seminar on Achieving Sustainable Development Goals for Parliaments of Asia-Pacific”, the IPU president pointed out that the contributions of Pakistan to climate change are too small but the consequences it is facing are too big. He expressed solidarity with the people of Pakistan due to critical situation after floods and said that more than 30 millions of people have been affected as hundreds of people died and infrastructures destroyed.

Solidarity is important especially for the people and families who suffered due to this catastrophe and it is the obligation of developed countries of the world to help Pakistan recover from this challenge, he said. The contributions of Pakistan to climate change are too small but the consequences it is facing are too big. Those countries mainly contributing in the climate change needs to understand the situation and change their policies for the better future, he added.

He said the biggest economies of the world, hence, need to understand their responsibilities to cope with the challenge of climate change. He stressed we need to act now to deal with this challenge. The IPU president called for collective efforts to protect the environment and achieve the sustainable development goals. He was also appreciative of Pakistan’s commitment to the SDGS and the establishment of a Task Force for this purpose.

He said that SDGs are really important for all human kind of poor countries of the world. He expressed satisfaction over the commitment of Pakistan in achieving SDGs and hoped that Parliament of Pakistan would also play its role along with government for the purpose.

He said the two years during COVID pandemic was challenging but hoped that all the countries and their governments should remember their commitment towards SDGs and make renewed efforts for the purpose. He said that SDGs are important to fight inequalities, poverty and for prosperity which the parliamentarians have pledged with the people being their representatives. He said that parliamentarians are special hope because they represent people who want their issues to be addressed.

Meanwhile, President Dr Arif Alvi while talking to Duarte Pacheco-led delegation at the Presidency said that Pakistan would always stand by its commitment to the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s (IPU) mission for peace, democracy, human rights, gender equality and youth empowerment. Talking to the delegation, the president said that Pakistan had high expectations of IPU, particularly with regard to playing a key role in the resolution of conflict and upholding human rights in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

He expressed the hope that IPU would take notice of the ongoing Islamophobia in India and the increasing persecution and intimidation of Muslims in India. While discussing the magnitude of recent floods in Pakistan, the president said the devastating floods were a wake-up call to the world to take serious, meaningful and effective measures and actions on war footing to reduce carbon emissions for preventing the devastation caused by climate change in many parts of the world, especially in this country.

He deplored that Pakistan was facing the worst impact of global warming despite the fact that it was contributing less than 01% of carbon emissions in the world. He called upon the IPU to take parliamentary action to reduce the negative fall-outs of climate change.

President Alvi said that Pakistan alone could not shoulder the gigantic task of rehabilitation of 33 million flood victims and reconstructing millions of houses and vital infrastructure. He appealed to the developed world to come forward and help Pakistan to cope with the devastation caused by global-warming-induced super floods.