ISLAMABAD: The efforts of the government to protect the environment seem to have borne fruit as Pakistan has succeeded to reduce its vulnerability to climate change by three points.
A report titled “Global Climate Risk Index 2021,” released by Germanwatch, has shown that Pakistan dropped from fith most vulnerable country to climate change to the eighth position.
The thinktank said that it took into account most data from 2000 to 2019 to analyse and rank “to what extent the countries and regions have been affected by impacts of climate-related extreme weather events” such as storms, floods, and heatwaves.
In 2019, Pakistan was listed eighth most vulnerable country but it climbed three spots to attain the fifth position in 2020. Despite the improvement in its standing this year, Pakistan is still ranked amongst the top ten countries most at risk of climate change.
The report has warned that “countries like Haiti, the Philippines, and Pakistan are …continuously ranked among the most affected countries both in the long-term index and in the index for the respective year.”
Its Long-Term Climate Risk Index highlighted that Pakistan lost 0.52 per cent per unit of its GDP due to climate change and 173 climate-related events from 2000 to 2019.
