On Monday, a Pakistani Prime Minister House official shared a letter with the media written by Prime Minister Imran Khan, which addressed the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In the letter, Imran Khan praised the Saudi initiative for its contribution to protecting nature and the planet. The Pakistani Prime Minister also offered his country’s support to Saudi Arabia for the latter’s massive tree-planting project.
In the letter, the Pakistani Prime Minister said that he was delighted to learn about the Royal Highness’ plans for launching the ‘Saudi Green Initiative’ as well as rallying the region for the larger ‘Green Middle East Initiative’ aimed at protecting the nature and planet.
The Saudi initiative aims to plant 10 billion trees in Saudi Arabia and cooperate with Arab states to plant 40 billion trees more in order to curb carbon emissions and combat pollution as well as land degradation.
Prime Minister Imran Khan also pointed out that the Saudi initiative matches a similar Pakistani initiative called Clean and Green Pakistan, aiming to develop nature-based solutions to cope with climate change impacts in the country. Within the scope of this initiative, Pakistan developed the 10 Billion-Tree Tsunami project, and planted over one billion trees between 2014-2018. The forestation process has been continuing in the country, the Prime Minister said in the letter.
Emphasizing the importance of international cooperation to combat challenges brought by climate change, Khan also wrote to the Crown Prince that: “We would be happy to share experiences, knowledge, and lessons from our nature-based approaches and initiatives.”
