In today’s globalised world, environmental factors are going to play a major role in not so distant a future, in the social and economic development of countries, especially the underdeveloped ones. Conference of Parties (COP22) was a United Nation’s (UN) Conference on Climate Change in Marrakech, Morocco held between November 7-8 2016, to put these environmental changes into perspective and find solutions for them.
The industrialisation and urbanisation around the world has adversely affected the environment we live in. The negative effects on economic growth and development can be seen in the form of climate change and erratic weather patterns. The developing countries including Pakistan are suffering the most from these changes, and Pakistan is among the top ten countries which have been severely affected by climate change. Sustainable development cannot be achieved around the world if environmental degradation goes unabated. In the 70th UNGA meeting in 2015, the UN put forward its long-term development plan into motion in the form of its new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs consist of 17 major goals, with goal number 13 framed as, ‘Take urgent action to combat Climate Change and its impacts’, and which exclusively deals with climate issues and how they relate to sustainable development going forward. The SDGs came into action in 2015 and will last till 2030 and are mainly aimed at helping the developing countries to pursue their economic growth, whilst having minimum negative impact on the environment.
