STAFF REPORT ISB: Meteorologists and environmental experts have termed the rapid urbanisation, developmental work and massive deforestation as the main cause of rising temperature in Islamabad.
According to them, Pakistan is already among the top ten countries where unusual weather patterns are making major environment impacts, and the situation may further deteriorate in the coming years if attention is not paid to issues related to climate change.
Former Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency Director-General Asif Shuja said that due to widespread falling of trees and rapid urbanisation, temperature in the capital city has started to regularly cross 44 degrees in summer.
“It is because of new construction and uprooting of trees,” he said, suggesting that there was a need to take satellite images of Islamabad to gauge the most heat-emitting areas. “Once the major heat-emitting areas are detected, it will help take preventive measures to control rising temperatures of the city,” he said.
“After the devolution of the ministry of environment under the 18th Amendment, no project on protection of forests has been undertaken by any department in the country,” he said.
Veteran research scholar of Comsats university in Environment studies, Dr Syed Faisal Hussain said that that the government needed to invest more on environmental issues to make the country clean and green.