Cities to make disaster-resilient, environmentally-sustainable: Experts.

ISLAMABAD -- Experts on Thursday underlined need of a viable policy framework to boost climate resilience of the country's urban areas against climate change-caused natural disasters.

The participants at a National Inception Workshop on Climate-Resilient Urban Settlement, highlighted that heatwaves and flooding were major risks that pose threats to the very sustainability of the cities, irrespective of their sizes.

'However, making the cities disaster-resilient is only possible through the capacity-building of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within these cities to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what type of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience," they suggested.

The event was organized by the Ministry of Climate Change in collaboration with UN-Habitat and various provincial and federal government and non-governmental organizations, said a press release.

Addressing the event as keynote speaker, the Secretary Climate Change Ministry Naheed Shah Durrani remarked that the present government has established a major initiative titled 'Climate-Resilient Urban Settlements in Pakistan' to develop a policy framework and initiate infrastructural and non-infrastructural measures to boost resilience of urban areas of the country against recurring and intensifying natural disasters.

Pakistan's rate of urbanisation has been ranked highest among South Asia, where over 36.4 percent of the country's population lives in urban areas. The UN Populations Division approximates that nearly half of the country's population will be living in cities by 2025.

She noted that around 50 percent of the populations in urban areas of the country is settled in informal settlements, which are characterized by heightened levels of climate vulnerability and lack of disaster-proof infrastructure facilities.

She pointed out that the uncontrolled urban growth and lifestyle changes has led to change in increased consumption of energy, domestic transportation and fuel, contributing to both heightened level of local air pollution, GHG emissions and land pollution, specifically that arising from cities' wastewater disposal and solid waste management.

However a climate resilient urban human settlements unit has been established in the ministry to cope with these challenges by boosting coordination and cooperation between federal and provincial governments as well as relevant non-governmental stakeholders for achieving the...