News

Pakistan’s first climate change adaptation plan to tackle “mountain tsunamis”

02.05.2012

Pakistan, with its 5,218 glaciers and 2420 glacial lakes – 52 of which have been classified as potentially dangerous – has launched its first climate change adaptation project aimed at tackling the threats communities face from bursting glacier lakes in the country’s northern mountains. The US$ 4.1 million project in Pakistan, managed by Ministry of National Disaster Management in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme, is the first of its kind in the country to respond to glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). The two year pilot project will focus on two sites: Bagrot Valley in Gilgit-Baltistan and Drongagh Valley Chitral, part of Hindu Kush – the largest area in the world covered by glaciers – in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of the country. Dr. Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, Advisor on Climate Affairs stressed that “Pakistan is the lowest emitter of greenhouse gases but the worst sufferer, which justifies the urgent need to implement the GLOF project.”

Photo (c) Simon Bisson / Flickr