CLIMATE CHANGE RESILIENCE AND COMMUNICATION: EXPLORING GAPS AND

  • Climate change as a consequence of anthropogenic activities has now become a serious global concern. The demand of better lifestyle has created several human activities that contributed in the production of greenhouse gases i-e., electricity, transportation, livestock, energy, fossil fuels consumption, industrial activities and pollution etc. that ultimately responsible for changing the temperatures at global scale. No matter, the production of greenhouse gases are in United States or in China, they can impact in changing the temperature at global scale beyond the boundaries which then have severe impacts on both social life and natural ecosystem.

    Therefore, it now becomes a global agenda to tackle this situation because of which the natural habitats and ecosystems are at greater risk. Political institutions has raised their voice in recent decades at global level to reduce the impacts of climate change with all possible solutions of adaptation, mitigation and resilience. The United Nations seriously worked on the issue to highlight it on global scale by organizing “The United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change” in 1992 and then subsequent climate summits i-e., Conference of the Parties (COP) that embodies global efforts to confront the situation by involving all international stakeholders. In these conventions and summits, 194 of the world’s 206 states participate and put their efforts to reduce the impacts of the climate change. Further, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were designed and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 to settle down environmental protection keeping in view the socio-economic development. It is a framework of seventeen (17) goals with 169 targets and 247 indicators. Such efforts highlights the serious behaviour of global political and socio-economic players towards betterment of the environment and futuristic sustainable development.

    The objectives of SDGs agenda set for 2030 against global climate could be achieved through adapting comprehensive climate change policy and stringent implementation of this policy. Further so, techniques such as adaptation and resilience at root level could be beneficial in meeting the objectives of SDGs. Resilience is thought to be multidisciplinary and multidimensional phenomenon where its interpretation may vary depending on scale, purpose, context, domain and disciple. The phenomenon of resilience has been developed as a concept of adaptation, early preparedness to minimize the negative impacts of disasters and shock in societies, communities and at global scale. Now, it is demanded in research to synthesize and bridging the concepts of resilience to cope climate change adaptation for achieving sustainable goals. However, the development, implementation and adaptation of climate change policy in Pakistan is challenging because of low growth trajectories, higher poverty levels and greater vulnerability to climate change. Pakistan is at greater risk against extreme climate patterns and potential disasters and over few yester years, Pakistan has continuously been ranked among top most affected countries of the world in view of climate change. 

    Keeping in view the above mentioned situation in perspective of Pakistan, it is imperative to adopt low cost and effective strategies to develop and implement the climate change policy. Effective communication through all available media is one such tool that could be used to enhance awareness levels about resilience of climate change. Media is considered as the central interpretative system of today’s modern societies, thereby playing a critical role in taking up of the climate change politics in societies. Frist of all, it plays a central role in disseminating knowledge and raising awareness among people about different resilience low cost and adaptive techniques of climate change. As it is evident that most of the people are unaware about the impacts and mitigation strategies of climate change and the issue is only centralized to the scientific and very few political community. So, knowledge about this critical issue could mainly be disseminated through public communication. Owing to higher circulation and access to media by general public, mass media are essential in creating awareness and can be beneficial is several aspects i-e., public draws most of its climatic knowledge; it is central forum for legitimation and discussion for climatic governance; important element of formation of political climatic opinion; balancing different interests and reaching the public and politicians on the governance of climate change and transforming opinions about the conflicts regarding the issue. Therefore, mass media can be the vital force in achieving the goals of SDGs, particularly in the case of Pakistan. Nonetheless, the role of communication has not been addressed deeply to raise the issue of climate change in Pakistan and to create a debate about the resilience adaptation about the climate change issues. Consequently, this study is designed to explore the gaps and opportunities for communication and mass media in relation to climate change resilience in perspective of SDGs for Pakistan. This study will provide the framework for policy and decision makers to adopt communication strategies to tackle the severe situation of climate change and to meet the global agenda set in SDGs.

    Global climate change has the most important issue to address and communicate in the mass media around the world for awareness, adaptation, resilience and capacity building, particularly in third world countries. Pakistan is directly facing the severe impacts of global climate change but there is no deep understanding and awareness of the issue from policy makers to general public. Though, increasing literature regarding communication of climate change and resilience technologies has seen enormous expansion of methods, approaches and questions but still there are gaps in the literature about effective communication and output of climate change resilience. A number of valuable studies in different countries provide insight into the communication strategies that develops global climate change attention but their differences in analytical approaches, data, methods, time frames and media has made it difficult to compare their results in a broader scenario. Owing to such difficulties which are further pertinent in Pakistan, it directly impacts the national policy of climate change which ultimately contributes in the global climate change policy. Most of these communication studies have been conducted in industrialized countries, so it is direly important to explore the communication gaps and opportunities for Pakistan in perspective of climate change.

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