Climate Change and law in Pakistan
Writing about climate change and the law in Pakistan is difficult because there is no special law related to climate change in Pakistan. Instead, it is helpful to understand of the subject by examining climate change and what it means for the law in Pakistan.
Climate change describes significant and unexpected changes in established patters of weather, brought about by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gasses. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came into force in 1994 and seeks to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” Pakistan is a signatory to the Rio Declaration of 1992 as well as the UNFCCC.
Contrary to perception of bureaucratic ineffectiveness, one of the lesser known facts of Pakistani governance is the huge steps Pakistan has taken towards environmental protection. This is despite the fact that, other than the pre-18th Amendment inclusion of “environment pollution and ecology” in the Concurrent Legislative List of the Constitution, there is no mention of the word environment in the entire Constitution.
The environment became an official part of Pakistani governance shortly after the UN Conference on Human Environment in 1972 with the establishment of a sub-Ministerial Environment and Urban Affairs Division in 1974. Pakistan enacted its first environment-specific legislation in 1983 with the promulgation of the Pakistan Environment Protection Ordinance, 1983. The Environment and Urban Affairs Division was upgraded to the status of a Ministry in 1989 and, within a few years, it produced the National Conservation Strategy of 1991. The momentum and focus on the environment was also an asset at the international level, and Pakistan was prominent in the drafting of the Rio Declaration as it headed the G-77 block of countries in negotiations during the Earth Summit of 1992.
The Pakistani Supreme Court created legal history with Shehla Zia vs. WAPDA (PLD 1994 Supreme Court 693) by recognizing the right to a clean and healthy environment as part of the Fundamental Right to Life guaranteed by the Constitution and continues to develop pioneering environment jurisprudence. A post-Rio legislation, the Pakistan Environment Protection Act, 1997 (PEPA 1997) was passed allowing Pakistan to comply with international environmental obligations. The passage of PEPA 1997 was followed by many environmental policies and initiatives.
For reasons to be detailed in this article, the focus and momentum developed over the 1990s has been lost and environment issues, including climate change, rarely receive any political attention. I have often overheard remarks that environmental law lives in Pakistan solely because the interests of foreign NGOs and governments. This is cruel and untrue, though a longer defence is the subject of an altogether different article.
Under the terms of the UNFCCC, Pakistan submitted its Initial National Communication on Climate Change in November 2003. The Communication sought to “provide a detailed analysis of issues confronting Pakistani climate change planners.” Using climate change scenarios consistent with scenarios generated and used by UN agencies, the Communication describes the impacts climate change will have on water resources, agriculture, forestry and land-use change, coastal zones, livestock, biodiversity, important ecosystems, socioeconomics and extreme events.
According to the Global Climate Risk Index published by Germanwatch, Pakistan ranked the 8th country most affected by climate change between 1992 and 2011. Pakistan was 3rd most affected country in 2011. This vulnerability has not escaped official attention. The Government of Pakistan declared 2009 the National Year of the Environment (attention to which was diverted by the military operation in Northern Areas that year and the large-scale internal migrations that ensued). Earlier, in 2008, the Planning Commission of Pakistan constituted a Task Force on climate change. The Task Force submitted its report in 2010 and this report was the building block upon which the National Climate Change Policy (NCCP), adopted by the Federal Government in 2012, is based. The NCCP is the primary policy document on climate change in Pakistan.
The NCCP lists the important climate change threats to Pakistan as under:
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By Ahmad Rafay Alam