November 6, 2021
Staff Report
LAHORE
Social and political activists have announced that they will be holding a Climate Justice March on Monday, November 8. The march is to begin from Lahore Press Club and end at the Aiwan-e-Iqbal. This was announced in a press conference at the Lahore Press Club where environmental lawyer, Ahmad Rafay Alam, and activists of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) Farooq Tariq, Irfan Mufti, Rai Ali Aftab, Hina Shahid (AGHS), were present.
The participants in the conference said that COP-26 in Glasgow, held under the United Nations, have failed to take solid and sustainable steps to curb environmental pollution. They added that Prime Minister Imran Khan showed non-seriousness by not attending the conference.
Rafay Alam said that the Glasgow Climate Change Summit had failed to make any decisions on the problem of global air pollution. “Nineteen countries have pledged to abandon coal-fired power generation by 2022. Coal supply companies have signed a six-year supply contract which should be cancelled.”
He added that plans to generate electricity and gas from coal should also be stopped at once in Pakistan.
The participants criticized the present government and said that the Billion Tree project had been thwarted by coal-fired projects and that climate justice could not be left at the mercy of the government.
They also lamented that Lahore had now become the second dirtiest city in the world, and one of the most polluted (air pollution).
They also said that the River Ravi Front project was an anti-farmer project, the completion of which would further pollute Lahore. The Ravi River Front project should be abandoned immediately, they said.
On November 8, the Climate Justice Manifesto will be presented.
At the occasion, representatives of the Asian Movement in Debate and Development Joint Action Committee for People’s Rights, All Pakistan Confederation, Pakistan Farmers Coordinating Committee, Haqooq-e-Khalq Movement, Progressive Students Collective, Aurat March, Women Democratic Front, South Asia Partnership (Pakistan), Labour Education Foundation, Pakistan Kiln Workers Union, Bonded Labor Liberation Front, Climate Action Now, HomeNet Pakistan, SAFMA, and the AGHS were also present.
