I received some good news last week that I would like to share with my readers. Earlier this year, I had applied for the 2009 Climate Change Media Partnership (CCMP) Fellowship Programme and I got selected!

I will be joining 39 other journalists from developing countries (chosen from a pool of 600 applicants) in covering the proceedings of the historic UN Climate Change Conference to be held in Copenhagen this December.

An international selection panel from Internews, Panos and the International Institute for Environment and Development sought advice from media editors and regional associations of journalists to select the final participants from around the globe. We will be part of a nine month fellowship, culminating in the Copenhagen summit where a year of negotiations could end with a new global deal to tackle climate change.

The CCMP Programme creates an opportunity for journalists to report in depth on climate change negotiations and share their stories with millions of people in developing countries who might not yet understand how climate change will affect them. I think those of us living in Lahore, who have suffered through a record sizzling (and rainless) summer are slowly realising that global warming is here to stay!

Up North, people living in villages close to glaciers are reporting that they are receding at an alarming rate. Last year, floods from the melting Ghulkin Glacier near Hunza hit the Karakoram Highway and a settlement in Ghulkin village, damaging fields, orchards and forest areas. The KKH also remained closed for six hours. On the coast, the sea is continuing to intrude, destroying mangroves in the Indus delta and forcing coastal communities in places like Keti Bunder to move further inland as underground water is contaminated and agricultural fields ruined. Rainfall patterns all over the country are becoming increasingly unpredictable, with drought in some places and flooding in others. River flows are decreasing in the Indus River, the country’s life-line, which in turn means less hydro-electric power in the years to come.

These are all issues I would like to research further and will now have the chance to do so, thanks to the fellowship. As well as receiving training and mentoring, we will take part in media clinics, field trips and interview sessions with leading climate change experts and negotiators. I hope to gain scientifically-based, first hand information about how climate change will affect us in Pakistan and how we can adapt to new ground realities. What we need are facts, figures and adaptive solutions and not just vague predictions and doomsday scenarios.

‘Climate Change presents a planetary emergency requiring a rapid global response. The media are well placed to increase social awareness as a first step towards action and change. These fellowships will give journalists in vulnerable countries the vital opportunity to engage their home audiences,’ says Rod Harbinson of Panos.

The Programme will also commission print or radio features and run a regional workshop at the pre-Copenhagen climate change negotiations in Bangkok in October. At the end of this month, I will also be off to Kathmandu in Nepal to attend another regional workshop and field trip to visit shrinking glaciers.

‘The CCMP Programme will help journalists both to prepare their coverage for Copenhagen, and to report on the implementation of what governments agree there,’ says Mike Shanahan of the International Institute for Environment and Development.

This is, of course, a crucial ‘make or break’ year for the planet’s survival when it comes to a global treaty on curbing carbon emissions. However, as the world heads to the final UN climate summit in Copenhagen, global talks to stop the climate crisis are already stalling. The leaders of the biggest polluting countries are refusing to cut enough carbon emissions to avert a catastrophe. It appears that these leaders are besieged daily by lobbyists from the powerful oil and coal industries (who will lose their profits if a strong global treaty is signed)!

This is where journalists can play an important role — in keeping the public informed about what is going on and what they can do to put pressure on their governments and leaders. Though Pakistan is not a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (which are causing climate change), we are definitely high on the list of countries who will suffer the most from climate change (I think we rank number 11 globally on the list of sufferers). Hence, it is important that our leaders take an active part in the global negotiations to lobby on behalf of us Pakistanis.

It will be extremely interesting to see what happens as the year ends — and it will be great to have a ring side seat to the whole show in Copenhagen in December! As one email I received recently put it: ‘This is the big moment — either our leaders will agree to a fair, ambitious and binding global treaty that sets tough legal limits on carbon pollution for each country, or they will fiddle while the planet burns.’

Original article on Dawn