he US-Pakistan Green Alliance will not only benefit the coming generations in Pakistan, it will also add a new dimension to the US-Pakistan relationship, says Deputy Chief of US Mission in Pakistan, Andrew Schofer.

In an exclusive chat with The News on Sunday to discuss the Green Alliance, Mr Schofer, flanked by three US Consul Generals, Kristin Hawkins from Lahore, Shante Moore from Peshawar and Conrad Tribble from Karachi, said, “About two years ago, Ambassador Blome and the Mission and our Pakistani contacts were looking at the future of the Pakistani-American relationship. We were looking for areas of cooperation after the devastating flooding in 2022.” He recalled that the US was able to react quickly to the flood and provided assistance worth over $250 million immediately.

“We also helped coordinate the international donor conference and the promises that were made there. But you know, a relationship can’t be based just on this sort of emergency reactions.”The US DCM said the US Mission pointed out the areas for real growth and took initiative in those zones under the Green Alliance.

He said, “Climate change is an issue that affects everybody. It certainly affects Pakistan tremendously. So, we are working together for the US and Pakistan to develop a sustainable, climate-friendly energy system.”

Mr Schofer said, “The US and Pakistan have a long history of working together in the agriculture sector. The US believes that’s core to Pakistan’s long-term economic development.”

“Water management is another sector where we are working together,” he added.

He said that these three areas were pointed out in response to the flooding, but also have long-term implications. “We provided assistance under the Green Alliance which is a framework that allows us to identify areas where we can work together; where we can support each other; and where we have mutual interests.”

The three areas of water management, agriculture and climate-sustainable energy are the core ones. We’ve done a lot in hydropower. We’ve done a lot in agriculture. We’ve done a lot in these areas. We’re trying to think how we can posture them so that they support these Green Alliance initiatives.

Explaining the Green Alliance initiatives, Mr Schofer said, “There are lots of different sources of support. The Green Climate Fund is one of those. We’ve given about a billion dollars to that. Pakistan has been able to draw from that fund for several projects including the Indus Valley project. And then there’s the direct assistance to our programmes to focus more specifically on the areas, I mentioned.”

He said the US had been working with Pakistan in all these areas for decades. This doesn’t always get a lot of attention because the public attention is focused on other parts of the relationship. “So, this is also something that increasingly is going to become more and more important because it’s a key priority for the coming generations. We have to have clean air, clean water and clean energy. We can work together to achieve that.”

Ms Kristin Hawkins, the Lahore consul general, said, “The US Embassy is focused on Green Alliance from a policy perspective. We, in the consulates, are trying to see how we can bring this to life in a specific region, taking into account the particular challenges and opportunities in each region.”

She said that the US was focusing on using water and soil resources more efficiently; helping farmers get new opportunities to sell crops that otherwise would have just gone to waste; and trying to create new economic opportunities for farmers in addition to protecting the climate. “In the Punjab, specifically Lahore, the air quality is another challenge we are focusing on. We recently had a US air quality expert come out to Lahore to have meetings with a range of individuals from provincial officials to academics, to private sector folks. Those are challenges that we have dealt with in the United States in the past. Look at Los Angeles in the 1980s,” said Ms Hawkins.

“The US and Pakistan have a long history of working together in the agriculture sector. US believes that’s core to Pakistan’s long-term economic development.”

She said that having already dealt with these challenges the US had figured out ways to overcome some of them pretty effectively. “So that’s the sort of expertise that we at the consulate want to make sure Americans have a chance to share directly with Pakistanis.”

She said that the consulate general was looking for more opportunities to bring the two countries together beyond agriculture and air quality. The consulate general in Lahore had recently started a new partnership with the Lahore University of Management Sciences to support their Electric Vehicle Research Lab to contribute to the efforts on the clean energy front.

Highlighting initiatives under the Green Alliance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Peshawar CG, Shante Moore, said, “The US is helping over 2,000 farmers to learn best agricultural practices and use innovative technologies to grow profitable alternatives to illicit crops. This is a big challenge in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.” He said the US consulate in Peshawar had rehabilitated flood-damaged irrigation infrastructure to help restore irrigation supplies to 180,000 hectares of land after floods in 2022.

Moore added, “We are also working with the government of Pakistan to strengthen its flood forecasting capabilities through information gathering on snow accumulation in the Upper Indus Basin.” He said that to promote renewable energy projects in the KP, US is also working with universities and local communities on solar energy. “We want to partner with the federal and provincial governments; private sector and civil society because we believe that the Green Alliance will be beneficial for all Pakistanis.”

The Karachi CG, Conrad Tribble, said, “Under the Green Alliance, we are doing similar programmes with livestock farming; sustainable agriculture practices etc in Sindh and Balochistan from the Karachi consulate.” He said, “Sindh was the major focus for flood relief after 2022 and onward. We have a great relationship with the Sindh government and we are doing a lot of work through the USAID on flood recovery.”

He said there had been a lot of damage to the electricity distribution systems, the transmission lines and poles, and so forth after the flood. “We launched a project to support Hyderabad’s electricity distribution company and handed over 2,400 electric light poles, worth half a million dollars, to help rebuild the transmission infrastructure,” he added.

He said, “In 2014, we partnered with the Mehran University of Engineering where we built a water management science centre, trained staff and hired faculty to run it. It is now running as an independent part of the university. It is a national reference lab and research facility for water management techniques.” He said that his prime focus was on the Indus Valley where the USAID has a water management project that is again not just in Sindh but supports the whole of Pakistan and is part of the Recharge Pakistan programme.

He said that another initiative the US took was Green Shipping to convert the shipping industry across the board into a low-carbon/ no-carbon industry. “That’s a long-term project. For ports, it is important how they are reducing their carbon footprint. Ports that reduce their carbon footprint are going to be the ports that succeed in the economic competition for port services.”

He said, “The DCM chaired a couple of roundtables last year. We are trying to support Pakistan’s development of a set of goals, specific metrics to reduce the carbon emissions of the port industry, the three ports in Pakistan, and working directly with the ports, providing technical training and capacity building and best practice assessment as well. So, the green shipping part of the Green Alliance is something that is specific to the south. It has a lot of promise if we can mobilize well.”

The DCM remarked that Pakistan doesn’t currently have a huge shipping industry. It’s at a stage where it can be sort of ahead of the curve. Committing to green values now will be beneficial for Pakistan. “The technology is there. Some of the international shipping companies are already using it. So, I think there’s a real opportunity there.”

The writer is a senior journalist, teacher of journalism, writer and analyst. His X handle: @BukhariMubasher