‘Pollution serial killer in Pakistan’: Sherry Rehman

Liaquat Ali

Islamabad: Chairperson Senate Standing Committee on Climate Change and Environmental Coordination, Senator Sherry Rehman on Monday said pollution was a serial killer in Pakistan.

She was speaking at the ‘Pioneering Solutions for Climate Resilience’ session at 27th Sustainable Development Conference (SDC) organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in collaboration with the Ministry of Climate Change.

Sherry Rehman said measures as small as tuning our engines were needed to help control smog.

She commended the SDPI for taking sustainability beyond a cliché and making it applicable and congratulated the winners of the Sustainability Awards.

Senator Sherry Rehman deplored lack of coverage by the mainstream media on climate emergency, stating that “media is treating climate as a disaster tool”.

She said media only focuses on climate change when a disaster occurs, primarily holding print media responsible because “they know better”.

Therefore, SDPI should have a “journalist category” for the awards to reward those who focus on climate change as a priority, she added.

Sherry Rehman said according to data, Pakistan was the fifth country on the list of countries vulnerable to climate change. “However, I think that we are at an even higher risk because our population is not trained to deal with climate emergency,” she added.

On water, the Senator said Pakistanis had one of the highest per capita water usage which means we are wasting water which is a “finite, precious” resource which would not last forever.

She deplored that a large amount of unfiltered sewage was being dumped into Rawal Dam on a daily basis, which was the main source of water for Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

In the end, Sherry Rehman inaugurated the 2nd Sustainability Investment Expo 2024.