WASHINGTON: (Web Desk) US Congressman Ted W Lieu on Tuesday said that Pakistan should be invited to Climate Change Summit.
In his letter to US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, Ted Lieu said: “It has been brought to my attention that Pakistan is not among the 40 nations whose leaders were invited to the heads of state and government session at the Summit. I request that Pakistan be included in the heads of state session.”
Pakistan’s absence from the list of 40 nations makes little sense from a climate perspective. First, two of its important neighbors, India and Bangladesh are among those invited. Second, according to the Global Climate Risk Indux, Pakistan is ranked as the fifth most climate vulnerable nation in the world, making it uniquely impacted by climate policy.
Pakistan has a greater population than all but five nations invited to participate. Based on the nations invited, some have more carbon emissions and some have less carbon emissions than Pakistan. There does not appear to be any rational environmental standard that would result in Pakistan being excluded given the list of 40 countries that were invited, Ted W Lieu wrote in his letter.
“With a population of 216 million and growing economy, Pakistan is central to regional and global efforts to deal with climate change, I encourage to review the criteria for the list of nations invited and to consider including Pakistan,” Ted Lieu said.
