Islamabad: Founding Executive Director of Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) Dr Tariq Banuri has called for shifting policy formulation from clientelism to national needs.
In his distinguished lecture on “Natural disasters, climate change and policy response” organised here by SDPI, the scholar identified the erosion of institutional capacity and human resource quality, along with corruption and weak accountability, as the key reasons behind poor implementation.
Dr Banuri who is also former chairperson, Higher Education Commission, added that unconscious initiatives such as the NDMA system, the Billion Tree Tsunami, mass transit projects, renewable energy adoption and strengthened meteorological services contributed to climate response, but without integration into a robust national framework.
Comparing Pakistan’s trajectory with China, Dr Banuri emphasised the need for an “objective-driven” policy approach along with strengthening of relevant institutions, capacity buildup of relevant expert and skilled human resource and allocation of required finances to ensure effective implementation of frameworks and policies.
He cited China’s export-led green strategy, heavy investment in research, subsidies for renewable energy and electric vehicle industries, and long-term institutional development as a model. Whereas Pakistan begs for change, China produces change, he observed. He noted that Pakistan is among the top ten most impacted nations by climate change, with projections showing that its average temperature rise will exceed global averages by one degree Celsius in this century. “We are entering what the IPCC calls the age of committed climate change. The window for action is short and closing fast,” he stressed.
Dr Banuri underlined that despite decades of climate policies including the National Climate Change Policy (2012), its implementation framework (2013) and the Climate Change Act (2017), Pakistan failed to meet a single major target. He described the country’s policy framework as “a reactive laundry list” shaped more by catastrophic events than by coherent strategy.