Pakistan joins the international community in celebrating the “World Environment Day 2022” on the theme “Only One Earth”. This year’s World Environment Day is significant because it marks fifty years since the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, that was the first international meeting on environment and led to the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “Only One Earth” was the slogan for the 1972 UN Conference. Fifty years on, this truth still holds – planet Earth is our only home.

For the last five decades, the world has been observing this Day as the largest global platform for raising public awareness about the pressing environmental challenges. As one of top ten most climate vulnerable countries, Pakistan highly values the global efforts to combat climate change, halt and reverse biodiversity loss, reduce pollution, and restore ecosystems.

Pakistan is fully committed to take ambitious actions to address climate change and environmental hazards. Pakistan is already in the midst of one of the world’s most ambitious efforts to expand and restore its forests. In its quest for a Green Future, Pakistan is working towards setting national policies in motion to achieve by 2030, 60% of our energy mix, clean and green, and shift 30% of road transport to electric vehicles, as envisioned in its recently submitted Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.

It is imperative for the international community to take ambitious actions and translate political commitments on combating climate change and environmental degradation into tangible steps on ground. For developing countries like Pakistan, raising ambition would not be possible without provision of sufficient means of implementation including climate finance, technology and capacity building support by developed countries.

Going forward, we reaffirm our resolve in taking action on combating climate change, protecting biological diversity, and reversing ecosystem degradation.