Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday appealed to the world to help with the growing recovery needs of millions of flood-affected people after more than $30 billion in damages and winter losses.
He also called for creating a global climate index under the United Nations, redefining climate finance.
Addressing the landmark COP-27 climate change summit in Egypt’s tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Tuesday evening, Shahbaz pointed out the disproportionate losses and losses compared to Pakistan’s contribution to climate change.
Assessing the devastation caused by the floods, he said that Pakistan’s priorities were never clear.
He added that the global adaptation goal needs to be prioritized both in terms of financing and timelines.
Shahbaz complained that the world has yet to see the promise of one-half and one-half balance in fiscal adjustment and mitigation.
“The current financing gap is too large to sustain any real recovery needs for those on the front lines of climate catastrophe,” he said.
Referring to the current situation in Pakistan, he demanded that loss and damage should be included in the main agenda of COP27 to meet the humanitarian needs of people trapped in public financing crisis due to debt. And yet climate catastrophe must be funded. Pay your bills.
“It is unfair and unjust to say the least,” he asserted.
Shahbaz demanded that climate finance should be clearly defined.
“New, additional and sustainable resources with a transparent mechanism that meet the needs of developing and vulnerable countries with speed and scale,” he said.
“There should now be full clarity on what actually counts as climate change and what counts as development funds because they often overlap,” he stressed. Despite years of discussion, even the basics have yet to be agreed upon.
Urging the world to live up to its commitments, he said the commitments made at Copenhagen COP15 in 2009 to raise $100 billion annually by 2020 had not yet been fulfilled.
“They need to be scaled up given the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events,” he suggested.
Pakistan also demanded that a Global Environmental Risk Index of all parties to the UNSCC be developed under the auspices of the United Nations system.
“Projects from the most vulnerable countries on this index should receive priority and accelerated approval for climate finance.”
Finally, he said climate mitigation ambitions need to be restated with a clear burden-sharing formula.
“The commitment to common but differentiated responsibilities must be honored as we race towards the speed of global warming set out in the Paris Agreement,” he stressed.
He continued that Pakistan will move towards a net-zero plan but first it is important for the country to come out of its current climate disaster.
“Unless there is a shift in capacity finance and technology flows that reverse the pyramid of climate capital, bargaining between North and South will not work,” he warned.
Pointing to the specific case of Pakistan, Shehbaz said that the country is grappling with a rising import bill to meet domestic food and energy needs, while also meeting the needs of climate victims. All other available resources had to be redirected. induced disasters.
“We had to distribute about $360 million through a program called the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) to provide $113 per household to about three million households in the flood-affected areas,” he said.
Widening Gap
Shahbaz Sharif praised the aid provided by countries around the world and said that winter is coming and millions of people who have been displaced by floods in various provinces have been given shelter, houses, medical treatment and food packages. There is an urgent need to provide.
“We are spending billions of rupees from our meager resources,” he said while mentioning the impossible choice.
He said that on one hand we have to spend billions of dollars to meet our food security for the common man and on the other hand we have to spend billions more to save the flood affected people from further suffering and hardship.
“How on earth can anyone expect us to do this huge task ourselves,” Shahbaz fumed.
He lamented that this gulf is huge and it is widening day by day.
“It is the duty and responsibility of the Global North to understand our difficulties and our plight.”
Shahbaz termed climate-induced disasters as “man-made disasters”.
“If we have to fight and rebuild and repair our infrastructure, which has to be flexible and adaptable, then of course we can only do that through additional funding and not through additional loans and borrowings because that’s fiscal. It will be a trap of death.”
He hoped that this conference would hear this message loud and clear and convey it to all those who have the power and the financial power to change the course of history.
“It’s now or never,” he added, “there’s no Planet B for us.”
