Pakistan working with US to unlock climate-resilient ecosystem amid unstable environment: Masood Khan.

WASHINGTON -- Pakistan is working closely with the United States to unlock a climate-resilient ecosystem that would adapt to worldwide weather changes and their impacts, Pakistani Ambassador Masood Khan said Friday.

In a keynote address at a discussion, organized by Baker Institute at Rice University, Houston, Texas, he said that recent initiatives, including, Green Alliance and Climate Smart Agriculture will benefit farmers and create a framework for conserving water, building small dams and improving yields of staple crops like wheat, rice and cotton

Taking part in the virtual discussion were US policymakers, members of the think-tank community, intelligentsia and area experts.

Ambassador Khan said that Pakistan's entire ecosystem was sensitive to extreme weather patterns. 'With the help of the International Financial Institutions, we have initiated reforms for water conservation, transition to modern agricultural technologies, re-afforestation, wastewater management and water metering,' he said.

He said that Pakistan, fully cognizant of the serious challenges being faced in the fields of energy and water security, was taking consistent steps to improve its power generation through diversification of its energy mix.

In the past decade, he said, Pakistan had commissioned more than 10 GW of new power generation and 1 GW of wind and solar power-based projects. However, he observed, the gap was still very wide that needs to be bridged.

'We need to further diversify our energy mix and decrease our dependence on oil and gas imports by focusing on indigenous resources,' he stated.

Masood Khan said that alternate energy, especially solar and wind, was a growth industry in Pakistan and may well be...