Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar has urged the world to step forward and help developing countries like Pakistan to cope up the adverse effects of climate change.

He said this while inaugurating the National Emergencies Operation Centre (NEOC) in Islamabad on Thursday.

The Prime Minister lauded the establishment of NEOC that will help in coordinated efforts to not only manage the natural disasters in the future, but will help in disaster risk reduction and mitigation of damages. He said climate change is a real challenge that will keep haunting the future generations unless concrete steps are taken. He said despite being one of the least contributors of carbon emissions globally, Pakistan is one of the top countries affected by climate change.

The Prime Minister also praised the coordinated efforts of all state institutions during the devastating floods of 2022, especially the National Disaster Management Authority. He recalled that nearly one third of the population of the country was affected by floods in 2022 and 30 billion dollars were estimated to be the economic losses. He also praised the role of NCOC both in COVID-19 and 2022 floods.

The Prime Minister was told that NEOC will serve as hub of all technological inputs related to climate change, disasters management and predictive modeling for national emergencies. First of its kind in Pakistan and the region, this is Pakistan's indigenously conceptualized capability, which will evolve capacity to predict future disasters with credence and accuracy about likely locations, time of impact and damage intensity. It would generate coordinated response, guiding lower tiers of provincial and district level disaster management authorities.

The need was felt for a platform which should perform the functions for developing a national collage of disasters monitoring, high end technology driven capability. It can estimate vulnerable areas needs and determine the gap to be pre-coordinated support from global partner through all time ready holistic national outlook in the form of real time National Common Operating Picture.

The ceremony was attended by national and international dignitaries who appreciated Pakistan government in establishing a high end outcome, fast-paced development of NEOC in record time and the swath of multilateral utility it promises of mutual growth and protection of strategic investments.

Source: Radio Pakistan