Education, awareness and skill development programmes can help Pakistan reduce its carbon emissions without compromising economic growth, according to a new Pakistan-Chinese study.
An educated, innovative and productive population will be more ready to adopt new, pollution-free methods and technologies in industry, transport and households, according to the study, published this month (May) in the Journal of Cleaner Production. Investing in human capital is the best defence against environmental degradation, the researchers say.
They based their study on data relating to long- and short-term effects of human capital on carbon emissions reduction in Pakistan from 1971 to 2014.
“We learnt from our findings that if people, employees and societies are more educated, they are more productive and have more potential to understand the importance of environmental quality and energy security and to follow environmental regulations,” Yuhuan Zhao, lead author and associate professor at the School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, tells SciDev.Net.
Read more at SciDev.Net
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