Environmental degradation posing threats to country’s economy: Aurangzeb

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb said that the government would utilize all its resources to realized sustainable economic and environmental growth as both were correlated to each other.

At present, environmental degradation and large population are major existential threats to the country’s economy, for which the government will provide all financial and technical resources so that the country’s economy can move forward, the finance minister said.

Senator Aurangzeb said this while addressing the ceremony of ‘World Day of Glaciers’ organized by the Minister of Change and Environment in NDMA headquarter.

The minister said that at the macro-economic level, the country’s economy has achieved stability at present and in the future, all environmentally friendly measures will be taken for Sustainable economic growth, and the government will provide ample resources to the relevant institutions.

He said that due to population growth and environmental incompatibility, environmental phenomena like fog have emerged in Lahore and other big cities, which require intensive steps to resolve it.

Aurangzeb said that to make the environment sustainable in the country, “We need short-, medium-and long-term policies and the country does not have enough time to rely only on long term policies.”

He said that the super flood of 2022 is a terrible example of environmental imbalance, which has identified the big challenge of the future and has given us the alarm to deal with this existential threat.

The finance minister said that glaciers in the northern regions of Pakistan were significant for the Pakistani economy and due to environmental incompatibility, 10,000 glaciers are at risk.

He said that to deal with threats like melting of glaciers, a monitoring system and glacier protection strategy are required for glacier conservation in the country.

He said that the 10-year economic reform program being made by the government with the support of the World Bank, where environmental challenges get a more significant place, and the World Bank will provide us with full support in this regard.

The minister said that the government also provided full support from UNDP for glacier protection, which is of utmost importance.