At COP30, Dr Musadik Malik calls on developed world to support preservation efforts
Federal Minister for Petroleum Musadik Masood Malik speaks to Reuters during an interview in Islamabad, June 11, 2024. PHOTO: REUTERS
ISLAMABAD:
Pakistan has urged the international community to act quickly to protect the rapidly deteriorating cryosphere, warning that accelerated melting of glaciers in the Hindu Kush-Karakoram-Himalaya (HKH) region is putting millions of people at increasing risk.
In a virtual speech at a high-level dialogue at COP30 in Belem, Brazil, Pakistan’s climate minister Senator Dr. Musadik Malik said the world is witnessing “unprecedented” changes in glacier systems, permafrost zones and snow-covered regions.
He warned that these changes are already disrupting water supply, food production and the security of mountain communities.
The discussion, organized by the Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination of Pakistan in association with international organizations, brought together officials, scientists and specialists from Nepal, Bhutan, Turkiye, Azerbaijan, ICIMOD, UNDP, UNESCO and the Asian Development Bank.
Dr Malik said the HKH, often called the planet’s “Third Pole”, is warming almost twice as fast as the global average, threatening the largest reserve of fresh water outside the polar regions.
Pakistan, home to around 13,000 glaciers, is already facing rapid retreat, expanding glacial lakes and a sharp increase in glacial lake flooding.
He said these changes are beginning to alter the natural flow of the Indus River, damaging infrastructure, undermining farmland and increasing water insecurity downstream. For mountain communities, he said, climate change has become “a daily crisis.”
Dr Malik said climate-driven melting of glaciers is proceeding at an unprecedented pace, leading to increasing dangers such as glacial lake flooding. He also pointed to global inequalities in climate finance, arguing that a handful of large emitters contribute the most to global carbon pollution while also receiving the lion’s share of green finance.
He urged countries with historical responsibility for emissions to support adaptation efforts in vulnerable mountain regions and called for the cryosphere agenda to be elevated at COP30.
Scientific assessments presented at the event indicated that up to 65% of HKH glaciers could disappear by the end of the century under high emissions scenarios.
Experts at the dialogue noted that Pakistan’s northern regions are already experiencing frequent GLOF events, which have destroyed houses, schools, roads and farmlands in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Erratic river flows, they added, are also weakening agricultural production, disrupting hydropower generation and limiting water supplies in major cities, while disrupting local ecosystems and economies across the Indus Basin.
With APP input
