Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif underlined the need for practical measures to protect glaciers to safeguard life, agriculture and the environment.
In a message on World glaciers day observed on March 21, he said that glaciers were a guarantee of life on earth, since they maintain the environmental system in their natural form and guarantee the supply of important natural resources especially of clean water.
He said: “In 2025, we are celebrating for the first time the day of the world of glaciers.”
“Today we recognize the need for immediate measures to protect the important deposits of clean water,” he said, he added: “Pakistan has more than 13,000 glaciers. This number is more than the glaciers present anywhere, except in the polar regions of the earth,” he added.
The prime minister said that Pakistan was among the main countries affected by climate change.
Due to climate change, the weather was changing and the average temperature was increasing, which resulted in a rapid fusion of more than 10,000 glaciers, he said.
As a result, he said that due to floods and drought, rivers, agriculture and millions of people who worked in the sector face dangers. He said that due to the merger of the glaciers, thousands of new lakes formed, which increased the danger of devastating floods. He said that the floods of 2022 had made it clear that Pakistan faced serious dangers of climate change.
These floods caused devastation between the population that lived along the currents and rivers and in the plains, which resulted in general economic losses of $ 30 billion, he added.
As one of the most affected countries, the prime minister said that Pakistan needed greater cooperation in different areas, including the program to monitor glaciers, the early forecast system, the adoption of agricultural practices to protect against the harmful effects of climate change and attract investments for alternative solutions to storage water.
He said: “We need to promote international tourism at the international level according to the established guidelines to stop the destruction of precious tourist assets of poisonous substances and pollution.”
He said that everyone had to take practical measures for the protection of glaciers because in case the glaciers disappeared, the livelihoods connected to them would also be destroyed.
