As the world makes for COP30 in Belem, Brazil, hopes are rising. The conference promises to accelerate climate action and implementation through six thematic pillars incudes energy, industry and transport; forests, oceans and biodiversity; agriculture and food systems; cities, infrastructure and water; and human and social development, with finance, technology and capacity building as cross-cutting issues.
The focus this time is on adaptation and tangible solutions. Yet for Pakistan, a country that has suffered devastating deluges, heatwaves and water crises, the question stays: will this COP bring real transformation, or will it repeat the long pattern of unmet promises since the first COP in 1995?
During a recent visit to a remote coastal village in Pakistan, I asked a farmer named Soomar if he had ever heard of ‘COP’. He looked puzzled and shook his head. I explained that it stands for the ‘Conference of the Parties’, where approximately 200 nations gather each year to discuss how to tackle climate change and protect the planet. Soomar paused for a moment and then replied quietly, “They sit, discuss, analyse and discover new ways to destroy the environment”. His words, spoken in simplicity yet sharp with truth, capture the deep disappointment of millions.
The annual climate conferences have produced hundreds of declarations, frameworks and pledges over nearly three decades, but the Global South’s reality has deteriorated. Each year, new financial commitments are made and each year the gap between promises and delivery broadens. At COP29 in Baku last year, developed countries agreed to help mobilise at least $300 billion annually by 2035 for developing nations, as part of a broader target to scale up financing to $1.3 trillion per year from all sources. A year earlier at COP28 in Dubai, the Green Climate Fund had received a record $12.8 billion in pledges from 31 countries. But these numbers remain mainly limited to press releases and speeches. For the countries that need support most like Pakistan funds either trickle in too slowly or come as loans that deepen debt instead of enabling resilience.
The truth is bitter. Since 1995, COPs have given little to countries of the Global South besides hope and paperwork. For Pakistan, whose 2022 floods caused more than $40 billion in loss and damage, the 2025 flood loss and damage estimation is pending. The climate crisis is not an abstract discussion but a lived disaster. Yet, the flow of climate finance to the country remains negligible, fragmented and often tied to conditions that are impossible for a struggling economy to meet.
According to national and international estimates, Pakistan will need around $348 billion by 2030 to implement its climate actions, $152 billion of which is required solely for adaptation. But the gap between needs and flows is colossal, and global mechanisms have failed to bridge it.
If COP30 truly aims to shift from pledges to implementation, Pakistan must advocate not just for promises, but for structural change in how climate finance is delivered. The first and foremost demand should be for grant-based finance rather than loans. Climate justice cannot exist if adaptation is financed through debt. For a country already burdened by economic fragility and inflation, new climate loans amount to punishment, not partnership. What Pakistan needs is fair access to grants and concessional funds that can directly support climate-resilient infrastructure, climate-smart agriculture, mangrove protection and early warning systems.
Equally critical is the operationalisation of the Loss and Damage Fund, a mechanism long promised but still ineffectively financed. Pakistan should push for predictable, automatic and easily accessible funding for loss and damage, especially as climate disasters are becoming annual realities rather than rare events. The 2022 and 2025 floods, glacial lake outbursts and heat-induced crop failures are reminders that adaptation has limits. Beyond those limits, global solidarity must translate into financial repair for unavoidable damage.
Pakistan must also advocate for honest technology transfer and robust capacity building to turn climate drive into actionable progress. Without access to technology and the skills to apply it, climate solutions remain unfilled slogans. Whether it is renewable energy, sustainable irrigation systems or early warning tools, Pakistan needs not only the hardware but the knowledge. This demands a new partnership between the Global North and South based on trust and shared benefit, not dependency and bureaucracy.
Simultaneously, COP30 can provide Pakistan with a unique opportunity to attract private investment through climate-smart policies and blended finance. Public money alone cannot meet the scale of climate action required. But private investors will only come if Pakistan creates a foreseeable policy environment such as strong regulations, reliable incentives and transparency. Besides, green bonds, carbon markets and risk insurance mechanisms could be the tools to unlock new flows, but only if they are designed to serve people, not profit margins.
Though the international system improvements, Pakistan must also look within. The climate governance of country remains uneven, with shaky coordination between federal and provincial institutions. Projects often lack long-term vision, and financial transparency is limited. Without strong accountability, even well-intentioned funding can be lost to incompetence. Pakistan must establish clear climate budget tagging, strengthen its project design capacity and develop an integrated national framework for climate investment.
To truly benefit from COP30, Pakistan’s delegation must go to Belem not as a passive participant, but as a critical voice. The country must remind the world that it stands not as a beggar for aid but as a victim of global injustice demanding compensations. It should build stronger alliances within the Global South especially with the G77, V20 and climate-vulnerable coalitions to intensify its demands for fair financing, technology access and transparent mechanisms of implementation.
For too long, climate negotiations have been dominated by the language of promises. Pakistan, like many other vulnerable countries, can no longer afford promises. It needs delivery. COP30 must mark a shift from conversation to consequence. If the world continues to treat climate action as charity rather than obligation, the spiral of climate injustice will continue.
The message from Pakistan to Belem should be clear: stop pledging, start paying. Stop planning, start acting. Climate adaptation is not a project for tomorrow. It is a fight for survival today.
The writer is assistant director, Climate Change Adaptation, at the Pakistan Red Crescent Society, Islamabad.
