ISLAMABAD: Speakers at a seminar urging the global community to compensate Pakistan’s environmental damages caused by the 2022 devastating floods have advised the government of Pakistan to bring serious policy reforms.
Speaking at a seminar titled, “The Potential of Pakistan’s Case for Claiming Reparation for Loss and Damage in the Aftermath of Floods 2022” organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in collaboration with Oxfam and partners, Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, advisor World Bank (WB) said that Pakistan needs serious course correction and better comprehension of eligibility criteria for global loss and damage fund.
This is crucial to overcome challenges hindering the country’s access to global finances needed to boost resilience of the vulnerable countries against climate change, he said. Sheikh called for a clear definition of loss and damage in policy documents and building capacity of the bureaucrats about pledges made under NDCs so that they can develop more competitive climate financing proposals.
He elucidated that under the NDCs Pakistan committed to undertake assessment of loss and damage, costing of losses and augment data management and integration of evidence. The low progress in their achievement remains a key objection when climate finance projects are applied. He proposed developing a holistic and consistent definition of loss and damage to enable the convergence of national and sub-national efforts.
Dr Shafqat Munir, deputy executive director SDPI highlighted that Pakistan is vulnerable to various kinds of climatic disasters, direct and indirect hazards, with macroeconomic imbalances further exacerbating after recurrent climatic disasters.
While giving an insight into the 2022 devastating floods, he highlighted that 2022 floods submerged one-third of the country under water, displaced around eight million people, and affected 33 million people with Sindh being the worst-affected province with close to 70 percent of total damages and losses. These significant losses revealed that the country has weak Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) capacity coupled with inaction in addressing climatic hazards.
He pointed out that establishing a global climate-induced loss and damage fund has been in discussion since early 1990s with Pakistan playing an instrumental role in the establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund at COP27 in 2022 in the aftermath of the 2022 floods.
However, the operationalization of the fund at the global level is yet to be achieved. He said that Pakistan’s financing case is weakened due to the unavailability of substantial evidence of the adverse impacts of climate change in lieu of loss and damages.
He further stressed aligning the climate financing proposals with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopting a whole-of-society approach for climate action and connecting with finance with mid-term budgetary frameworks to bridge financing gaps.
Expert of Climate Finance Kashmala Kakakhel remarked that Pakistan pleaded a strong case at the international forums and the interim foreign minister also pleaded the country’s stance on loss and damage fund. However, the country needs to proactively build its loss and damage case around the five pressing questions debated in the transitional committee meetings held to work out the modalities of the fund.
The pressing queries underscore the source of the fund, the financing streams, the place of establishing the fund, eligibility of the countries, purpose, and mechanism of transferring the finances through the fund, she added.
Zainab Naeem, associate research fellow SDPI highlighted that while developing countries particularly Pakistan and Libya have very strongly advocated the case for Loss and Damage Fund, however, there is quite aggressive counterarguments conditioning the fund with fossil fuel-based projects and economies.
She said that developing countries are unjustifiably forced to adopt transformative pathways even though they are already bearing the burden of debt traps, economic, climate crisis, and geopolitical issues.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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