Main photo: Special Assistant to PM on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam addresses the media about the launch of the Forest Restoration and Carbon Offset Programme at the Ministry of Climate Change. Image Credit: PID

Islamabad: The Pakistan government has announced it will collaborate with the private sector to restore at least 50,000 acres of degraded forest land across the country.

Architecture, by its very definition, involves the construction of structures. Structures that are meant to serve as spaces for work, living, religious devotion, amongst many other purposes. Architectural projects and interventions, however, need land – and it is this intrinsic relationship, between land and architecture, that has massive ramifications not only regarding reducing carbon emissions but more importantly in forming an equitable future rooted in climate justice.

In Bangladesh, one in every seven people will be displaced due to climate change by the end of 2050, according to recent estimation. Sea level rise may cause the displacement of up to 18 million people of Bangladesh. Natural disasters are another reason for displacement where 700,000 people on average migrate every year according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. In 2009, cyclone Aila displaced millions of people and many agricultural lands submerged with saline water.

Madagascar is one of the countries that contributes the least to climate crisis yet is the fourth most affected by it according to the 2020 Global Climate Risk Index. The country is also a biodiversity hotspot.

Over the last two weeks, world leaders gathered in Glasgow, Scotland – home of the first industrial revolution – to find a tangible solution to growing climate change issues. The 26th United Nations Global Climate Change Conference (COP26) urged both developed and developing countries to shift from coal-based energy to clean energy by rewiring investments from fossil fuel to environmentally friendly solutions. As a result of this significant pledge, Mongolia and other coal-dependent countries’ long-term economic strategies will be deeply affected.

Indigenous communities facing an upsurge in land grabs, water shortages and human rights violations as a result of the Cop26 deal have accused world leaders of sacrificing them in order to postpone meaningful climate action and shield corporate profits.

A recent report released by the United Nations revealed that 74% of speaking time at the U.N. climate talk negotiations is taken up by men.

Kim Harrisberg and Megan Rowling writing for the Thompson Reuters Foundation examine how 1.1 million people have been severely impacted  by  persistent drought in  Madagascar and how 14 000 are one the edge of famine.

Yesterday for the first time at a UN climate summit, world leaders shone a spotlight on forests and land. Heads of state, corporate moguls and philanthropists lined up to announce huge figures to protect nature and halt and reverse forest loss.

MAYUMBA, Gabon, Nov 2 (Reuters) - With its oil reserves waning, Gabon is betting that careful logging can safeguard the vast wealth of its forests, halving its associated carbon emissions while producing more timber.

How Central African countries like Gabon manage their share of the world's second-largest rainforest is critical.

BULLDOZERS AT THE GATES — Here’s a novel idea: Let’s save the forests. As the U.N. Climate Change Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, gets underway, the first big promise is about deforestation.