Press release | 24 Nov, 2009

Ecologists and energy experts call for making responsible choices

KARACHI NOVEMBER 25: IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature, and business Council for Sustainable Development, Pakistan jointly organized a seminar titled Energy and environment: Making responsible choices. The seminar was held at the PSO house.
 

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Photo: IUCN Pakistan

Managing Director of Asia Petroleum and President of Business Council for Sustainable Development, Pakistan , Amjad Parvez Janjua highlighted the importance of the collaboration with IUCN, the world’s largest union with an environmental organizations.

IUCN Pakistan’s Country Representative, Shah Murad Aliani gave details of IUCN’s work and invited the corporate sector to team up with IUCN to find shared solutions to the environmental problems. He explained the objectives of IUCN’s Business and BioDiversity programme and how the corporate sector interacts with it elsewhere throughout the IUCN system.

Panelists drawn from the environment and Energy sector in their
presentations highlighted the need to seek sustainable solutions to meet the energy needs of the country.

Noted ecologist Dr. Parvaiz Naim sounded a note of caution regarding the use of energy and how it impacted climate change. He took the audience through the various stages of the development of the energy sector, and showed how the bad choices had brought the country into an energy deficient state
despite so much investment in it.

Javed Akbar, an environmental consultant highlighted the disparities in the pricing of fuels available in the market to show that the lowest income bracket was paying the highest price for their fuel consumption. He urged the rationalizing of prices for remove these disparities and make them more equitable.

Najmul Hasan Farooqui urged not only the adoption of energy conservation but also highlighted the need for going for efficient use of the available energy resources.

Expert from the transport sector, Shahid Lutfi gave figures of the high
traffic areas of Karachi and correlated them with the levels of pollutants recorded there.

Syeda Naqvi, Urban Transport consultant from Punjab explained the
Sustainable Urban Mobility model as implemented in other Asian cities like in Cebu, Philippines, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Indore in India. She also explained about the plans that are being developed for Rapid transit public transport systems in Lahore.

The presentations were followed by a lively question answer session whose outcome was the need for rational laws, and their across the board implementation, and overcoming the crisis of governance.

Managing Director of PSO, Irfan Qureshi also extolled the need for policy makers to take the subject experts on board before embarking on policies that have been drafted without any long term vision.

For more information, please contact:
Afia Salam
Coordinator, Education, Communications & Outreach

Focal Person Business and BioDiversity
IUCNP

1 Bath Island Road
Clifton
Karachi 75530
Tel: 92 (21) 5861540/41/42
Fax: 92 (21) 5861448
Cell: 0300 9223019
0345-2006610
www.iucnp.org


About IUCN

IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, helps the world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges by supporting scientific research; managing field projects all over the world; and bringing governments, NGOs, the UN, international conventions and companies together to develop policy, laws and best practice.

The world's oldest and largest global environmental network, IUCN is a democratic membership union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists and experts in some 160 countries. IUCN's work is
supported by over 1,000 professional staff in 60 offices and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the world. IUCN's headquarters are located in Gland, near Geneva, in Switzerland.

www.iucn.org