Pakistan fully committed to ambitious actions to address climate change

ISLAMABAD, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan is fully committed to taking ambitious actions to address climate change and environmental hazards, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said on Sunday in marking the World Environment Day.

The occasion is significant this time because "it marks fifty years since the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment which was the first international meeting on environment and led to the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)," the ministry said in a statement.

As one of top 10 most climate-vulnerable countries, Pakistan highly values the global efforts to combat climate change, halt and reverse biodiversity loss, reduce pollution, and restore ecosystems, the statement said.

The South Asian country is already in the midst of one of the world's most ambitious efforts to expand and restore its forests, according to the foreign ministry.

It is imperative for the international community to take ambitious actions and translate political commitments into combating climate change and environmental degradation into tangible steps on the ground, said the statement.

"We reaffirm our resolve in taking action on combating climate change, protecting biological diversity, and reversing ecosystem degradation," said the foreign ministry.