Multilateral Environmental Agreements: A Way Forward for Pakistan

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An extensive amount of scientific research work exists as proof that anthropogenic activities are causing climate change and greenhouse gas emissions: primarily through biosphere degradation and combustion of fossil fuels. Countries on a global scale are apt to implement environmental decisions to mitigate damage caused by anthropogenic sources. These decisions came into force after governments and large-scale independent bodies gathered hard evidence, preferably quantitative data, to adopt agreements at a regional, bilateral, and multilateral level.

There are three kinds of Environmental Agreements;

      (1) Regional Environmental Agreements refer to a specified zone, for example, “The ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) Agreement on Trans Boundary Haze Pollution” is an agreement signed in 2002 by its member states to reduce haze/smog in South East Asia.

      (2) Bilateral agreements refer to an agreement between the two countries to manage cross-border issues related to Environment, for example, “US-Canada Air Quality Agreement signed in 1991 to address air pollution and which was later updated to include smog emissions in the year 2000”

      (3) Multilateral Environmental Agreements refer to agreements between more than two states; usually, it includes underdeveloped, developing, and developed nations. For example, “Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal” signed in 1989 has more than 100 countries as parties which formally agreed and made commitments to reduce transnational movement of all kinds of hazardous waste.

One of the most efficacious ways to ensure effective environmental governance is to implement MEAs. These international agreements guarantee the economic, environment and social progress by the continuous implementation of SDGs across the globe. MEAs also ensure credibility, transparency, and compliance against set obligations under various conventions for each Party/Country.

The Constitution of Pakistan formulated environmental legislation in 1973 that paved the way for “National Conservation Strategy” (NCS) of Pakistan devised a few months before Pakistan’s participation in Earth Summit in 1992. The conservation strategy provided a basic framework for ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ and helped enhance policy making with respect to environmental governance. According to the NCS, funding for adaptation and mitigation projects was provided to Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), 8 agencies and 5 of the listed provinces.

Following the formation of NCS since 1992, Pakistan has signed and ratified several MEAs according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), the Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC) and the United Nations-Pakistan (UN). In the two decades that followed the Rio Summit, Pakistan went through political instability: restructuring, reassessment, and revaluation of priorities related to MEAs. For each MEA ratified, Pakistan is required to submit annual progress reports/plans as mentioned in clause(s) of the Convention of Parties (COP). There is a clear need to identify and examine the gaps after Pakistan periodically and successfully submitted reports to some MEAs and lacked a few submissions to the remaining ones.

Post Quarantine objectives for climate scientists of Pakistan should be

    1) Review of MEAs to identify information gaps in reports submitted to the UN

    2) Identification of factors for stakeholders to overcome the information gap

    3) Suggestions for policymakers for climate change mitigation and adaptation measures

New dates and change of venue are the heated topics discuss for UN Biodiversity Conference, 2020 nowadays. The Government of Pakistan could prepare its share of the potluck and bring the kind of meal that will improve future of the planet earth after Covid-19.

by: Noor Ul Ain

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